USN-8876-1: dozens of flaws in linux-azure-fde kernel, reboot required
Ubuntu fixes dozens of CVEs in the linux-azure-fde kernel for Azure CVM machines on 22.04 LTS. Reboot and recompilation of third-party modules required.
UptimeMag editorial team · 6 October 2026 · 1 min read
On 6 October 2026, Ubuntu published the security advisory USN-8876-1, which fixes dozens of vulnerabilities in the Linux kernel for Azure CVM (Confidential VM) systems. It affects anyone running Ubuntu 22.04 LTS "jammy" instances with the linux-azure-fde package, used for confidential machines on Microsoft Azure.
What's changing
Among other issues, the advisory flags CVE-2022-3114: the i.MX clock driver did not correctly handle certain memory allocation failures, resulting in a null pointer dereference. A local attacker could exploit this to cause a denial of service (system crash).
Besides this, the bulletin lists dozens of other 2026 CVEs (from the CVE-2026-7xxxx and CVE-2026-6xxxx series) affecting a very wide range of subsystems: ARM32/ARM64/MIPS/PowerPC/RISC-V/x86 architectures, the block layer, the cryptographic API, ACPI drivers, Bluetooth, GPU, InfiniBand, NVMe, PCI, the Btrfs, Ext4, F2FS, NFS and XFS filesystems, the networking subsystem (netfilter, IPv4/IPv6, SCTP, TLS), io_uring, BPF, cgroup, the scheduler and the KVM subsystem. According to Ubuntu, an attacker could exploit these flaws to compromise the system.
Fixed versions
| Ubuntu | Package | Version |
|---|---|---|
| 22.04 LTS (jammy) | linux-image-5.15.0-1122-azure-fde | 5.15.0-1122.131 |
| 22.04 LTS (jammy) | linux-image-azure-fde-5.15 | 5.15.0.1122.131 |
| 22.04 LTS (jammy) | linux-image-azure-fde-lts-22.04 | 5.15.0.1122.131 |
What to do
The bulletin warns that the update entails an unavoidable ABI change, so the new kernel version has a different number: after the standard upgrade, the system must be rebooted and any installed third-party kernel modules must be recompiled/reinstalled. A standard system update performs this step automatically, unless the standard kernel metapackages (linux-generic, linux-virtual and similar) have been manually removed.
For anyone managing fleets of Azure CVM VMs running Ubuntu 22.04, the practical takeaway is to schedule the reboot window and verify the compatibility of any custom kernel modules before applying the patch in production.
Source: official Ubuntu Security Notices advisory, USN-8876-1 (ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-8876-1).
Written with the help of artificial intelligence and checked by the editors (EU AI Act, art. 50). Source: Ubuntu – avvisi di sicurezza.