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Linux Kernel CVE-2026-53204

| EUVDEUVD-2026-39295 MEDIUM
NULL Pointer Dereference (CWE-476)
2026-06-25 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67 GHSA-7vgh-484p-pv5r
5.5
CVSS 3.1 · NVD
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Severity by source

NVD PRIMARY
5.5 MEDIUM
AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
vuln.today AI
5.5 MEDIUM

Local driver bug requiring low-privilege access on specific FPGA hardware; pure availability impact via kernel panic, no C/I impact.

3.1 AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
4.0 AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
SUSE
4.7 MEDIUM
AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Primary rating from NVD.

CVSS VectorNVD

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

Lifecycle Timeline

5
Analysis Generated
Jul 02, 2026 - 23:16 vuln.today
CVSS changed
Jul 02, 2026 - 21:07 NVD
5.5 (MEDIUM)
Patch available
Jun 25, 2026 - 10:32 EUVD
CVE Published
Jun 25, 2026 - 09:16 cve.org
UNKNOWN (no severity yet)
CVE Published
Jun 25, 2026 - 09:16 nvd
MEDIUM 5.5

DescriptionNVD

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

firmware: stratix10-rsu: Fix NULL deref on rsu_send_msg() timeout in probe

rsu_send_msg() can return -ETIMEDOUT when wait_for_completion_interruptible_timeout() fires while the SMC call is still pending. In stratix10_rsu_probe(), the error paths for COMMAND_RSU_DCMF_VERSION, COMMAND_RSU_DCMF_STATUS, COMMAND_RSU_MAX_RETRY and COMMAND_RSU_GET_SPT_TABLE call stratix10_svc_free_channel() - which sets chan->scl to NULL - but then fall through and queue the next request on the same channel. The next svc kthread that runs will dereference pdata->chan->scl in its receive callback path, triggering a NULL pointer dereference identical to the one fixed by commit c45f7263100c ("firmware: stratix10-rsu: Fix NULL pointer dereference when RSU is disabled") for the COMMAND_RSU_STATUS path.

Apply the same cleanup pattern to the remaining failure paths: remove the async client, free the channel, and return early so no further messages are queued on a channel whose scl has been cleared.

While at it, clean up stratix10_rsu_probe() in two ways without changing behavior:

  • Drop redundant zero-initialization of fields already cleared by

devm_kzalloc(): client.receive_cb, status.* and spt0/1_address (INVALID_SPT_ADDRESS is 0x0).

  • Replace five identical 3-line error-cleanup blocks

(stratix10_svc_remove_async_client() + stratix10_svc_free_channel() + return ret) with goto labels (remove_async_client, free_channel), matching the standard kernel resource-unwinding pattern and making it easier to extend the probe sequence without forgetting matching cleanup.

Also move init_completion() next to mutex_init() so sync-primitive initialization is grouped before anything that could trigger a callback.

--- v2: Add a minor clean-up of the function stratix10_rsu_probe() to have a centralize exit for all the rsu_send_async_msg() and rsu_send_msg().

AnalysisAI

NULL pointer dereference in the Linux kernel's Intel Stratix10 RSU (Remote System Update) firmware driver causes a kernel panic when SMC call timeouts occur during probe initialization. Affected kernels through 7.1-rc7 and 7.0.13 expose a race condition where timeout-driven error paths in stratix10_rsu_probe() free the service channel - setting chan->scl to NULL - but fail to return early, allowing subsequent service kthreads to dereference the now-NULL pointer in their receive callbacks. The vulnerability is a local denial-of-service with no public exploit identified at time of analysis, and EPSS places exploitation probability at only 0.15%.

Technical ContextAI

The affected subsystem is drivers/firmware/stratix10-rsu.c, which implements Remote System Update for Intel Stratix10 SoC FPGA platforms via Secure Monitor Calls (SMC). The driver communicates with the SoC's secure world through a service channel abstraction (stratix10_svc_chan), where chan->scl holds the pointer to the service client layer. CWE-476 (NULL Pointer Dereference) applies: rsu_send_msg() wraps wait_for_completion_interruptible_timeout(), which can return -ETIMEDOUT while an SMC call is still pending asynchronously. The probe function queries multiple firmware commands in sequence (COMMAND_RSU_DCMF_VERSION, COMMAND_RSU_DCMF_STATUS, COMMAND_RSU_MAX_RETRY, COMMAND_RSU_GET_SPT_TABLE); prior to the fix, each timeout error path called stratix10_svc_free_channel() to release the channel (zeroing chan->scl), but lacked an early return - causing the probe function to proceed to the next command and queue a new request on the now-invalid channel. When the background svc kthread subsequently runs its receive callback, it dereferences pdata->chan->scl and crashes. CPE confirms affected products as cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel across Linux 7.1 RC1 through RC7.

RemediationAI

Apply the upstream stable kernel patches available at https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/6bc249d324241c64118a3018124798c28e2950f7 and https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/bfd2eb9bba548a8f63c3339bb1fb9a2031a42d86. Per EUVD, Linux 7.0.13 contains the fix for the 7.0 stable branch. Distributions tracking affected kernels should apply vendor-provided stable updates once available. As a workaround on systems where the Stratix10 RSU feature is not required, the stratix10-rsu kernel module can be blacklisted (add stratix10-rsu to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf) to prevent driver probe entirely; this disables RSU firmware management capability but eliminates the vulnerable code path. Systems not using Intel Stratix10 FPGA SoC hardware are not affected and require no action.

Vendor StatusVendor

SUSE

Severity: Moderate
Product Status
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP7 Not-Affected
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP7 Not-Affected
SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 15 SP7 Not-Affected
SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 15 SP7 Not-Affected
SUSE Linux Enterprise High Performance Computing 15 SP7 Not-Affected

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CVE-2026-53204 vulnerability details – vuln.today

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