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Linux Kernel CVE-2026-53378

| EUVDEUVD-2026-45451 MEDIUM
Memory Leak (CWE-401)
2026-07-19 Linux GHSA-2r25-qjcv-hr44
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 low-privilege access required to trigger DRM state transitions; only availability impacted via kernel memory exhaustion; no confidentiality or integrity effect.

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
MEDIUM
qualitative
Red Hat
5.5 LOW
qualitative

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 29, 2026 - 17:10 vuln.today
CVSS changed
Jul 29, 2026 - 17:07 NVD
5.5 (MEDIUM)
Patch available
Jul 19, 2026 - 13:02 EUVD
CVE Published
Jul 19, 2026 - 10:02 nvd
MEDIUM 5.5
CVE Published
Jul 19, 2026 - 10:02 cve.org
UNKNOWN (no severity yet)

DescriptionNVD

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

drm/colorop: Fix blob property reference tracking in state lifecycle

The colorop state blob property handling had memory leaks during state duplication, destruction, and reset operations. The implementation failed to follow the established pattern from drm_crtc's handling of DEGAMMA/GAMMA blob properties.

Issues fixed:

  • drm_colorop_atomic_destroy_state() was freeing state memory without

releasing the blob reference, causing a leak

  • drm_colorop_reset() was directly freeing old state with kfree()

instead of properly destroying it, leaking blob references

  • drm_colorop_cleanup() had duplicate blob cleanup code

Changes:

  • Add __drm_atomic_helper_colorop_destroy_state() helper to properly

release blob references before freeing state memory

  • Update drm_colorop_atomic_destroy_state() to call the helper
  • Fix drm_colorop_reset() to use drm_colorop_atomic_destroy_state()

for proper cleanup of old state

  • Simplify drm_colorop_cleanup() to use the common destruction path

This matches the well-tested pattern used by drm_crtc since 2016 and ensures proper reference counting throughout the state lifecycle.

Co-developed by Claude Sonnet 4.5.

AnalysisAI

Memory leaks in the Linux kernel's DRM colorop subsystem allow a local low-privileged attacker to gradually exhaust kernel memory by triggering repeated DRM atomic state lifecycle operations, ultimately causing denial of service via out-of-memory conditions. Affected systems are those running Linux kernel versions between the introduction of the colorop subsystem (commit cfc27680ee208cdf7a61cda817b4158c4142595f) and the upstream fix commits, with patched versions available at 7.0.9 and 7.1. No active exploitation is confirmed (not in CISA KEV) and EPSS is extremely low at 0.14% (4th percentile), making this a low-urgency but legitimate kernel hygiene issue requiring patching during normal maintenance cycles.

Technical ContextAI

The affected component is the Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) colorop subsystem within the Linux kernel (cpe:2.3:a:linux:linux), which manages GPU color processing operations in atomic display mode-setting pipelines. DRM blob properties are binary data objects passed as part of KMS (Kernel Mode Setting) state; each requires explicit reference counting via drm_property_blob_put(). CWE-401 (Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime) manifests in three functions: drm_colorop_atomic_destroy_state() freed state memory without releasing blob references; drm_colorop_reset() used kfree() directly instead of the proper destruction helper, bypassing blob reference release; and drm_colorop_cleanup() had redundant, incorrect cleanup paths. The fix introduces __drm_atomic_helper_colorop_destroy_state() mirroring the reference-counted pattern used in drm_crtc since 2016, ensuring proper blob lifecycle management across state duplication, destruction, and reset operations. The 'Information Disclosure' tag from the intelligence source appears to be a metadata error - the CWE-401 and CVSS impact (A:H only, C:N/I:N) confirm this is purely an availability issue.

RemediationAI

The primary fix is to upgrade to Linux kernel 7.0.9 or 7.1 (or later), which include the corrected __drm_atomic_helper_colorop_destroy_state() helper. For stable-tree backports, apply the patches directly from the upstream stable git at https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/235b333e2878d791cee09e1e72f44611a9400114 and https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/271059f1d9020e9ac967524e319fbbaa22d0475b. Ubuntu users should apply the update referenced in USN-8593-1 at https://ubuntu.com/security/notices/USN-8593-1. For systems that cannot be patched immediately, restricting access to DRM device nodes (e.g., /dev/dri/*) to privileged users only via udev rules or cgroup device controller policies reduces the exploitable population to root-equivalent processes; trade-off is that unprivileged GPU access (required by many Wayland compositors and compute frameworks) will be disabled. No workaround fully eliminates the memory leak without the patch.

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 Availability Extension 16.0 Not-Affected

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CVE-2026-53378 vulnerability details – vuln.today

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