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Linux Kernel CVE-2026-53262

| EUVDEUVD-2026-39213 HIGH
2026-06-25 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67 GHSA-5xjr-h8mp-chfc
7.8
CVSS 3.1 · Vendor: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
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Severity by source

Vendor (416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67) 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 low-priv user (AV:L/PR:L), but winning a kernel race plus a userfaultfd sleep primitive makes it high-complexity (AC:H); UAF yields full kernel 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:P/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
7.8 HIGH
qualitative

Primary rating from Vendor (416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67).

CVSS VectorVendor: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

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 - 09:47 vuln.today
CVSS changed
Jun 28, 2026 - 08:22 NVD
7.8 (HIGH)
Patch available
Jun 25, 2026 - 10:32 EUVD
CVE Published
Jun 25, 2026 - 09:16 cve.org
HIGH 7.8
CVE Published
Jun 25, 2026 - 09:16 cve.org
UNKNOWN (no severity yet)

DescriptionCVE.org

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

l2tp: pppol2tp: hold reference to session in pppol2tp_ioctl()

pppol2tp_ioctl() read sock->sk->sk_user_data directly without any locks or reference counting. If a controllable sleep was induced during copy_from_user() (e.g. via a userfaultfd page fault sleep), a concurrent socket close could trigger pppol2tp_session_close() asynchronously. This frees the l2tp_session structure via the l2tp_session_del_work workqueue. Upon resuming, the ioctl thread dereferences the stale session pointer, resulting in a Use-After-Free (UAF).

Fix this by securely fetching the session reference using the RCU-safe, refcounted helper pppol2tp_sock_to_session(sk) on entry. This locks the session's refcount across the sleep. We structured the function to exit via standard err breaks, guaranteeing that l2tp_session_put() is cleanly called on all return paths to drop the reference.

To preserve existing behavior we validate the session and its magic signature only for the specific L2TP commands that require it. This ensures that generic/unknown ioctls called on an unconnected socket still return -ENOIOCTLCMD and correctly fall back to generic handlers (e.g. in sock_do_ioctl()).

AnalysisAI

Local privilege escalation via use-after-free in the Linux kernel's L2TP PPP (pppol2tp) subsystem allows a low-privileged local user holding a pppol2tp socket to corrupt freed kernel memory. The flaw is a race in pppol2tp_ioctl(), where sk_user_data was dereferenced without reference counting; an attacker stalls the ioctl mid-copy (e.g. via a userfaultfd page-fault sleep) while concurrently closing the socket, freeing the l2tp_session and leaving a dangling pointer. No public exploit identified at time of analysis, and EPSS exploitation probability is low (0.16%, 6th percentile).

Technical ContextAI

L2TP (Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol) over PPP is implemented in net/l2tp/l2tp_ppp.c, where each PPPoL2TP socket stores its l2tp_session in sk_user_data. The root cause is a classic CWE-416 Use-After-Free driven by a time-of-check-to-time-of-use race: pppol2tp_ioctl() read sock->sk->sk_user_data with no lock or refcount, so a sleepable window inside copy_from_user() (induced through userfaultfd) let a parallel socket close run pppol2tp_session_close(), which frees the session asynchronously through the l2tp_session_del_work workqueue. The fix acquires an RCU-safe, refcounted handle via pppol2tp_sock_to_session(sk) on entry, pinning the session across the sleep and dropping it with l2tp_session_put() on all exit paths, while preserving -ENOIOCTLCMD fallback for generic ioctls on unconnected sockets.

RemediationAI

Apply the vendor-released patch by upgrading to a fixed stable kernel - 6.12.94, 6.18.36, 7.0.13, or 7.1 or later - or install your distribution's backported kernel update referencing CVE-2026-53262; the upstream fix is in commits at https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/62f327e287cf7b595ae3f73ba72f5cd2a9e9f39f and the related stable commits. If immediate patching is not possible, reduce the attack surface by unloading or blacklisting the l2tp_ppp/pppol2tp kernel module where L2TP/PPP tunneling is not required (side effect: breaks any L2TP PPP VPN functionality), and restrict the controllable-sleep primitive by disabling unprivileged userfaultfd via sysctl vm.unprivileged_userfaultfd=0 (side effect: may affect userspace live-migration or CRIU workloads that rely on it). Limiting local shell access for untrusted users further lowers exploitability.

Vendor StatusVendor

SUSE

Severity: Important
Product Status
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 16.0 Affected
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP applications 16.0 Affected
SUSE Linux Micro 6.2 Affected
SUSE Linux Micro Extras 6.2 Affected
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP7 Affected

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CVE-2026-53262 vulnerability details – vuln.today

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