AI is finding thousands of bugs in Linux, and maintainers can barely keep up

[DragonSlayer101]

Facepalm: GLM-5.3, the large language model from Chinese AI company Z.ai, recently helped uncover more than 1,000 critical vulnerabilities across major open-source projects, including the Linux kernel, adding to the thousands more flagged by other AI systems this year. That torrent of AI-detected bugs is now pushing the number of CVEs fixed per Linux kernel release to nearly 2,000, up from roughly 500 per release for several years running.

Ahead of this month's Kernel Recipes 2026 event in Paris, Linux kernel maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman shared a graph charting the steep rise in CVEs found in the kernel over the past several stable releases. The slide shows that between versions 6.9 and 6.19, security researchers spotted around 500 vulnerabilities per release, on average.

From Linux 7.0 onward, that number jumped to around 1,000 CVEs per release, and Linux 7.2 pushed it past 1,500. Most of the bugs in recent releases were caught by AI code review platforms and large language models, and the count could climb above 2,000 with Linux 7.3 as frontier AI systems keep getting more capable.

At first glance, 2,000 CVEs in the Linux kernel sounds alarming, given that the vast majority of consumer, commercial, and industrial IoT devices run on Linux-based platforms, directly or indirectly. Worryingly, the kernel's source tree runs to around 40 million lines of code, meaning there are likely still thousands more vulnerabilities waiting to be found.

However, the vast majority of documented CVEs are either low-priority or affect obsolete drivers and long-deprecated features.

The rise in AI-driven bug reports has had a silver lining for the kernel codebase too: earlier this year, maintainers cleared out a batch of old drivers, along with the entire ISDN subsystem, that had been harboring dozens of CVEs.

Linus Torvalds flagged the problem in his Linux 7.1-rc4 release post this past May, warning that the kernel's private security mailing list had become "almost entirely unmanageable." Kernel maintainers have said report volume has climbed from around 2-3 per week two years ago to 5-10 every day in 2026.

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AI is finding thousands of bugs in Linux, and maintainers can barely keep up

 

[RudyBob]

"LM-5.3, the large language model from Chinese AI company Z.ai,' Beware, they are part of the plot

 

[user556]

And then there is the fixes for fixes counting for the long tail of fixes each release.

 

[Win7user]

Unlike Microsoft, I bet Linux fixes these bugs the first time, rather than two or three times...

 

[Liranan]

Unlike Microsoft, I bet Linux fixes these bugs the first time, rather than two or three times...

How many H1B's work on Linux compared with Windows?

 

[GeoffreyA]

Strange, I thought Linux was perfect.

 

[OortCloud]

Strange, I thought Linux was perfect.

No. Just much, much better.

 

[winjer]

Strange, I thought Linux was perfect.

Of course nothing is perfect.
But on the other side of the spectrum, Windows 11 is really terrible.

 

[GeoffreyA]

Of course nothing is perfect.
But on the other side of the spectrum, Windows 11 is really terrible.

Windows has big issues, no doubt about it.

No. Just much, much better.

Subjective. At a low level, the OSes are more similar today than of yore.

 

[dangh]

Subjective. At a low level, the OSes are more similar today than of yore.

I'd day they are similar at high level: you can use same browsers, play same games, use same or similar apps without batting an eye on what's below. But at low level they are dramatically different, from kernel, eventing, resource manegement to engineering approach.

 

[GeoffreyA]

I'd day they are similar at high level: you can use same browsers, play same games, use same or similar apps without batting an eye on what's below. But at low level they are dramatically different, from kernel, eventing, resource manegement to engineering approach.

There used to be big differences between the NT and Linux kernels, but over the years, Linux closed the gap and became more similar to NT than dissimilar. Mark Russinovich of Microsoft did an in-depth comparison round the time of Server 2003, showing that, despite different conventions, the principles were alike; implementation details differed. Today, of course, we don't know what the divergence is, but one would expect that, the more the low-hanging fruit is squeezed out, the designs converge.

 

[hahahanoobs]

No. Just much, much better.

For nerds.

 

[hahahanoobs]

Strange, I thought Linux was perfect.

Linux advocates are just lonely people that need friends really really bad.

 

[OortCloud]

Linux advocates are just lonely people that need friends really really bad.

That might have been true many years ago when you were younger and more open minded but now it's just a better choice for people who aren't stuck in their rut.

 

[hahahanoobs]

That might have been true many years ago when you were younger and more open minded but now it's just a better choice for people who aren't stuck in their rut.

It's free and Linux nuts still can't promote it without bringing up Microsoft. That's lonely kid stuff.

 

[OortCloud]

It's free and Linux nuts still can't promote it without bringing up Microsoft. That's lonely kid stuff.

Sorry where did I mention MS? Oh no wait - I didn't....

 

[disinfect8280]

Linux advocates are just lonely people that need friends really really bad.

If you care about privacy and want to minimize the overreach of big tech, how does that preclude your ability to have friends? Sounds like you are the one that has the issue if you are offended by that.

 

[trents]

I always wonder how many of these "vulnerabilities" are actually meaningful for the average user. Seems to me to be much to do over not much.

 

[VOZA0DB]

AI algos can find bugs... and if the bugs don't exist the algo will create some to report about them!

 

[mjuice7]

"LM-5.3, the large language model from Chinese AI company Z.ai,' Beware, they are part of the plot

along with your comprehensive knowledge of law, as exhibited in another thread, you're also a national security expert as well? did you also edumacate yourself on these issues while sitting at the kitchen table of granny's magat kitchen? btw, who won the 2020 election? Biden or drumpf?

 

[RudyBob]

along with your comprehensive knowledge of law, as exhibited in another thread, you're also a national security expert as well? did you also edumacate yourself on these issues while sitting at the kitchen table of granny's magat kitchen? btw, who won the 2020 election? Biden or drumpf?

I'm glad I am not an angry person such as yourself. I have a broad and lengthy knowledge base which allows me to formulate cogent opinions and the ability to express them. I think you are more angry at my abilities then what I post

 

[Mark Fuller]

along with your comprehensive knowledge of law, as exhibited in another thread, you're also a national security expert as well? did you also edumacate yourself on these issues while sitting at the kitchen table of granny's magat kitchen? btw, who won the 2020 election? Biden or drumpf?

I tell you man there's always a reason for a warning, else there would be nothing wrong. Do you suppose that AI is perfect along with the internet itself?

 

[deemon]

On the positive note, very good that those bugs have now been finally detected and dealt with. Once the legacy bugs have been fixed, we should see much safer smoother sailing forward.
On a sidenote, can't say MS is doing anything to fix anything on Windows side of things... so either their proprietary AI just sucks or they are literally drowning on bugs to fix.

 

[mjuice7]

I tell you man there's always a reason for a warning, else there would be nothing wrong. Do you suppose that AI is perfect along with the internet itself?

I dislike magats. magats aren't normal or decent people. if they were they wouldn't have elected a congenital liar & 34 times convicted felon. magats can't answer the simple question of who won the 2020 election. Biden or drumpf. they run away from this simple question. magats are too simple minded to realise that they're living in a kakistocracy. I know it's not a perfect world because these people exist.

 

[Mark Fuller]

I dislike magats. magats aren't normal or decent people. if they were they wouldn't have elected a congenital liar & 34 times convicted felon. magats can't answer the simple question of who won the 2020 election. Biden or drumpf. they run away from this simple question. magats are too simple minded to realise that they're living in a kakistocracy. I know it's not a perfect world because these people exist.

Be that as it may, I find it difficult to follow someone who expresses such outrageous comments about the people who are responsible for giving him the means to do so. You can bite the hand that feeds it only so much. And I understand the choice of the lesser of the two evils like Biden and "drumpf" must be a burden on the mind of someone who is... what is that, a magat. Also, I understand some people have a grudge against a very successful country on this Earth where everything comes from.