CVE-2026-72333

What it is

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: Bluetooth: L2CAP: fix tx ident leak for commands without a response Commit 6c3ea155e5ee ("Bluetooth: L2CAP: Fix not tracking outstanding TX ident") changed ident allocation to use an IDA, releasing idents in l2cap_put_ident() when the matching response command is received. But identifiers allocated for commands that have no response defined are never released. In particular L2CAP_LE_CREDITS is sent repeatedly for the lifetime of an LE CoC channel, so a peer streaming data to the host exhausts the 1-255 ident range after 254 credit packets. From then on l2cap_get_ident() fails: kernel: Bluetooth: Unable to allocate ident: -28 and every subsequent L2CAP_LE_CREDITS packet is sent with ident 0, which is invalid (Core Spec, Vol 3, Part A, Section 4: "Signaling identifier 0x00 is an invalid identifier and shall never be used in any command"). Remote stacks that validate the ident drop these commands, never receive new credits, and the channel stalls permanently. With default socket buffers this happens after roughly 0.5 MB of received data (the exact amount depends on the socket receive buffer): < ACL Data TX: Handle 2048 flags 0x00 dlen 12 LE L2CAP: LE Flow Control Credit (0x16) ident 0 len 4 Source CID: 64 Credits: 1 Release the ident immediately after sending L2CAP_LE_CREDITS since no response will ever release it. Use a local variable instead of chan->ident so that an ident that an EXT_FLOWCTL channel may be waiting on (e.g. a pending reconfigure) is not overwritten by a credit packet. Also add the missing L2CAP_LE_CONN_RSP case to l2cap_put_ident() so idents allocated for outgoing L2CAP_LE_CONN_REQ commands are released when the response arrives.

At a glance

Exploit odds

0.2% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days (EPSS).

Fix

No patch or advisory is linked yet. Look at mitigations or restrict exposure.

Timeline

1. 2026-08-15 06:22 UTC PublishedDisclosed publicly on CVE.org and NVD
2. 2026-08-17 06:18 UTC Last updatedMost recent change to the record

Why it ranks here

• Exploited in the wild: no, CISA does not list it.
• Exploit odds: 0.2% in the next 30 days (EPSS).
• Severity: not scored yet.
• Fix: none linked yet, which raises it.

Details

Published

2026-08-15 06:22 UTC

Last modified

2026-08-17 06:18 UTC

Exploit probability

0.2% · EPSS, next 30 days

Record status

Received

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