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Linux Kernel CVE-2026-74279

| EUVDEUVD-2026-59426 CRITICAL
2026-08-15 Linux GHSA-4p2p-ww9m-h8rq
Critical
Disputed · 10.0 Vendor: Linux
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Severity by source

Sources disagree (Medium–Critical)
Vendor (Linux) PRIMARY
10.0 CRITICAL
AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
vuln.today AI
2.5 LOW

Local hardware-gated error path (AV:L), only under DMA-failure conditions (AC:H), requires local privilege to drive offload (PR:L); impact is a resource leak affecting availability (A:L), no C/I loss.

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

vuln.today treats the vendor’s rating as authoritative. A higher third-party CVSS (e.g. CISA-ADP) is shown for transparency but does not drive the headline severity.

CVSS VectorVendor: Linux

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H
Attack Vector
Network
Attack Complexity
Low
Privileges Required
None
User Interaction
None
Scope
Changed
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

Lifecycle Timeline

5
Analysis Generated
Aug 17, 2026 - 10:09 vuln.today
CVSS changed
Aug 17, 2026 - 06:22 NVD
10.0 (CRITICAL)
Patch available
Aug 15, 2026 - 07:20 EUVD
CVE Published
Aug 15, 2026 - 05:57 cve.org
UNKNOWN (no severity yet)
CVE Published
Aug 15, 2026 - 05:57 cve.org
CRITICAL 10.0

DescriptionCVE.org

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

crypto: cavium/cpt - fix DMA cleanup using wrong loop index

The sg_cleanup error path used list[i] instead of list[j] when unmapping DMA buffers, leaking successfully mapped entries and repeatedly unmapping the failed one.

AnalysisAI

Resource-leak and repeated-unmap defect in the Linux kernel's Cavium/Marvell CPT cryptographic accelerator driver (crypto/cavium/cpt) mishandles its DMA error-cleanup path, using the outer loop index (list[i]) instead of the inner index (list[j]) so that successfully mapped scatter-gather entries leak while the single failed entry is unmapped repeatedly. It affects only systems running the cavium CPT driver against OcteonTX CPT hardware, is reachable solely when a DMA mapping failure occurs during request setup, and is a local reliability/resource-management bug rather than a remotely exploitable code-execution flaw. …

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Attack ChainAIDerived

Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata

Access
Local access to host with Cavium CPT driver
Delivery
Submit crypto offload requests under memory pressure
Exploit
Induce DMA mapping failure in sg setup
Execution
Buggy cleanup leaks mapped entries
Persist
DMA/IOMMU resource exhaustion
Impact
Degraded crypto offload / instability

Vulnerability AssessmentAI

Exploitation Exploitation requires that the target run the Linux cavium CPT crypto driver on physical OcteonTX CPT accelerator hardware, and that a DMA buffer mapping failure occur during crypto request setup - the error-cleanup path is the only place the wrong index (list[i] vs list[j]) executes, so on a healthy system with successful mappings the bug is never reached. … Additional conditions and limiting factors are described in the full assessment.
Risk Assessment The supplied CVSS of 10.0 (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H) is a Linux-CNA-style worst-case placeholder and is strongly contradicted by the description: the bug lives in an error path of a specific hardware crypto driver, requires that hardware to be present, and only triggers on a DMA mapping failure - it is neither network-reachable nor a confidentiality/integrity compromise. … Full risk analysis with EPSS, KEV, and SSVC signal comparison available after sign-in.
Exploit Scenario A local process on a host equipped with a Cavium/OcteonTX CPT accelerator drives repeated crypto offload requests under memory pressure so that dma_map operations intermittently fail, causing the buggy cleanup path to leak DMA-mapped buffers on each failure. Over time this exhausts DMA/IOMMU mapping resources and degrades or destabilizes crypto offload and the host. …
Remediation Vendor-released patch: update to a fixed Linux stable release for your branch - 5.10.261, 5.15.212, 6.1.178, 6.6.145, 6.12.97, 6.18.40, or 7.1.5 (mainline ~7.2-rc1) - via your distribution's kernel update. … Detailed patch versions, workarounds, and compensating controls in full report.

Recommended ActionAI

Within 24 hours, identify and inventory all systems running the Cavium/Marvell CPT driver with OcteonTX hardware and review system logs for recent DMA mapping errors. …

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Vendor StatusVendor

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CVE-2026-74279 vulnerability details – vuln.today

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