Home Assistant OS 18.5

Key points

Home Assistant OS 18.5 is a security release that applies only to Raspberry Pi boards and Home Assistant Yellow. It moves the Linux kernel on those devices to 6.18.59 to fix CVE-2026-98432.

What changed

• The kernel for Raspberry Pi and Home Assistant Yellow is updated to 6.18.59.
• The new kernel includes the fix for CVE-2026-98432, a use-after-free in the IPv4 socket options handling of the networking stack.
• All boards once again share a single Linux patch directory, a change to the build.
• The release was published on 6 November.

Who is affected

• Only Raspberry Pi and Home Assistant Yellow installations get a kernel change in this release.
• Other boards already received the fix with the kernel update in 18.4.
• The project says that, as far as it knows, the vulnerability is not being widely exploited.
• Updating is recommended for anyone whose Raspberry Pi is directly reachable from the internet or runs on an untrusted network.

Summary by DistroNews, based on the original post.