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Linux Kernel CVE-2026-52976

| EUVDEUVD-2026-38844 HIGH
Expired Pointer Dereference (CWE-825)
2026-06-24 Linux GHSA-c52j-4pg6-8f2f
7.8
CVSS 3.1 · Vendor: Linux
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Severity by source

Vendor (Linux) PRIMARY
7.8 HIGH
AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
vuln.today AI
7.0 HIGH

Local authenticated user (AV:L/PR:L); AC:H because exploitation needs the rarely-taken error path induced via resource exhaustion/race; UAF yields full memory-corruption impact (C/I/A:H).

3.1 AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
4.0 AV:L/AC:H/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:H/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
SUSE
7.0 HIGH
AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Red Hat
7.0 HIGH
qualitative

Primary rating from Vendor (Linux).

CVSS VectorVendor: Linux

Attack Vector
Local
Attack Complexity
Low
Privileges Required
Low
User Interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

Lifecycle Timeline

5
Analysis Generated
Jun 28, 2026 - 08:40 vuln.today
CVSS changed
Jun 28, 2026 - 08:22 NVD
7.8 (HIGH)
Patch available
Jun 24, 2026 - 18:02 EUVD
CVE Published
Jun 24, 2026 - 16:28 cve.org
HIGH 7.8
CVE Published
Jun 24, 2026 - 16:28 cve.org
UNKNOWN (no severity yet)

DescriptionCVE.org

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

drm/xe: Fix error cleanup in xe_exec_queue_create_ioctl()

Two error handling issues exist in xe_exec_queue_create_ioctl():

  1. When xe_hw_engine_group_add_exec_queue() fails, the error path jumps

to put_exec_queue which skips xe_exec_queue_kill(). If the VM is in preempt fence mode, xe_vm_add_compute_exec_queue() has already added the queue to the VM's compute exec queue list. Skipping the kill leaves the queue on that list, leading to a dangling pointer after the queue is freed.

  1. When xa_alloc() fails after xe_hw_engine_group_add_exec_queue() has

succeeded, the error path does not call xe_hw_engine_group_del_exec_queue() to remove the queue from the hw engine group list. The queue is then freed while still linked into the hw engine group, causing a use-after-free.

Fix both by:

  • Changing the xe_hw_engine_group_add_exec_queue() failure path to jump

to kill_exec_queue so that xe_exec_queue_kill() properly removes the queue from the VM's compute list.

  • Adding a del_hw_engine_group label before kill_exec_queue for the

xa_alloc() failure path, which removes the queue from the hw engine group before proceeding with the rest of the cleanup.

(cherry picked from commit 37c831f401746a45d510b312b0ed7a77b1e06ec8)

AnalysisAI

Local privilege escalation in the Linux kernel's drm/xe Intel GPU driver arises from two error-handling defects in xe_exec_queue_create_ioctl() that leave a freed exec queue linked into either the VM's preempt-fence compute list or the hardware engine group list, producing a dangling pointer and a use-after-free. A local user with access to the DRM device on systems running the affected Intel Xe driver (introduced around 6.12) can trigger the faulty cleanup paths to corrupt kernel memory, with potential for code execution at kernel privilege. There is no public exploit identified at time of analysis and EPSS is low (0.18%, 7th percentile); the issue is fixed upstream and in stable releases.

Technical ContextAI

The flaw is in the DRM (Direct Rendering Manager) subsystem's 'xe' driver, which supports modern Intel discrete and integrated GPUs (Xe/Arc generation). During the DRM_IOCTL_XE_EXEC_QUEUE_CREATE handler, the kernel registers a new exec queue with both the VM's compute exec-queue list (when the VM uses preempt-fence mode via xe_vm_add_compute_exec_queue()) and the hardware engine group via xe_hw_engine_group_add_exec_queue(). Two cleanup paths are wrong: if xe_hw_engine_group_add_exec_queue() fails, control jumps straight to put_exec_queue and skips xe_exec_queue_kill(), so a queue already on the VM compute list is freed while still linked (dangling pointer); and if the subsequent xa_alloc() fails, the queue is never removed from the hw engine group before being freed (use-after-free). The root cause is the classic CWE-416 (Use-After-Free)/CWE-415-style mismanagement of object lifetime across goto-based error labels, even though NVD lists CWE as N/A. The upstream fix reroutes the add-engine-group failure to a kill_exec_queue path and adds a del_hw_engine_group label so the queue is unlinked from every list before being freed.

RemediationAI

Apply the vendor-released patched kernels: upgrade to Linux 6.12.91, 6.18.33, 7.0.10, or 7.1 (or later in your series), which carry the corrected error-cleanup logic; these are confirmed via the stable git commits at git.kernel.org (f93b00161213…, 753b149d5a43…, 1be55646d8a2…, f3cc22d4df3e…). On most distributions this means installing the latest distro kernel package and rebooting. Where immediate patching is not possible, the most effective compensating control is to restrict access to the DRM device nodes (/dev/dri/card* and /dev/dri/render*) to trusted users/groups, since exploitation requires local access to the xe ioctl interface - the trade-off is that GPU acceleration (rendering, compute) will be unavailable to non-privileged users and containers that rely on it. On servers that do not need the Intel Xe GPU, blacklisting/unloading the xe module removes the attack surface entirely at the cost of losing that GPU's functionality. Avoid granting untrusted local users or unprivileged containers direct GPU passthrough until patched.

Vendor StatusVendor

SUSE

Severity: Important
Product Status
Image SLES15-SP7-Azure-3P Image SLES15-SP7-Azure-Basic Image SLES15-SP7-Azure-Standard Image SLES15-SP7-HPC-Azure Affected
Image SLES15-SP7-BYOS-Azure Image SLES15-SP7-BYOS-GCE Image SLES15-SP7-CHOST-BYOS-Aliyun Image SLES15-SP7-CHOST-BYOS-Azure Image SLES15-SP7-CHOST-BYOS-EC2 Image SLES15-SP7-CHOST-BYOS-GCE Image SLES15-SP7-CHOST-BYOS-GDC Image SLES15-SP7-CHOST-BYOS-SAP-CCloud Image SLES15-SP7-EC2 Image SLES15-SP7-EC2-ECS-HVM Image SLES15-SP7-GCE Image SLES15-SP7-HPC-BYOS-Azure Image SLES15-SP7-HPC-BYOS-EC2 Image SLES15-SP7-HPC-BYOS-GCE Image SLES15-SP7-Hardened-BYOS-Azure Image SLES15-SP7-Hardened-BYOS-EC2 Image SLES15-SP7-Hardened-BYOS-GCE Image SLES15-SP7-SAPCAL-Azure Image SLES15-SP7-SAPCAL-EC2 Image SLES15-SP7-SAPCAL-GCE Affected
Image SLES15-SP7-SAP-Azure Image SLES15-SP7-SAP-Azure-3P Image SLES15-SP7-SAP-BYOS-Azure Image SLES15-SP7-SAP-BYOS-EC2 Image SLES15-SP7-SAP-BYOS-GCE Image SLES15-SP7-SAP-EC2 Image SLES15-SP7-SAP-GCE Image SLES15-SP7-SAP-Hardened-Azure Image SLES15-SP7-SAP-Hardened-BYOS-Azure Image SLES15-SP7-SAP-Hardened-BYOS-EC2 Image SLES15-SP7-SAP-Hardened-BYOS-GCE Image SLES15-SP7-SAP-Hardened-GCE Affected
SUSE Liberty Linux 10 Fixed
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP7 Fixed

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CVE-2026-52976 vulnerability details – vuln.today

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