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Linux Kernel EUVDEUVD-2026-55549

| CVE-2026-68163 HIGH
2026-08-10 Linux GHSA-3995-93h6-g37x
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

AC:H reflects hardware prerequisite (device-private memory/GPU) and race condition timing dependency; PR:L for required local account; full C/I/A for kernel memory corruption.

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
6.5 MEDIUM
AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:L/A:H
Red Hat
5.5 MEDIUM
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

4
Analysis Generated
Aug 14, 2026 - 02:38 vuln.today
CVSS changed
Aug 13, 2026 - 23:37 NVD
7.8 (HIGH)
CVE Published
Aug 10, 2026 - 11:59 cve.org
HIGH 7.8
CVE Published
Aug 10, 2026 - 11:59 cve.org
UNKNOWN (no severity yet)

DescriptionCVE.org

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

mm/page_vma_mapped: fix device-private PMD handling

Commit 65edfda6f3f2 ("mm/rmap: extend rmap and migration support device-private entries") introduced the concept of device-private PMD entries, but did not correctly update the rmap walk code to account for them.

As a result, when page_vma_mapped_walk() encounters device-private PMD entries, it takes no action other than to acquire the PMD lock and exit.

However this is highly problematic for two reasons - firstly, device private entries possess a PFN so check_pmd() needs to be called to ensure an overlapping PFN range.

Secondly, and more importantly, if PVMW_MIGRATION is set the caller assumes the returned entry is a migration entry, resulting in memory corruption when the caller tries to interpret the device private entry as such.

In addition, commit 146287290023 ("mm/huge_memory: implement device-private THP splitting") allowed device private PMDs to be split like THP mappings, but again did not update this code path.

As a result, we might race a PMD split prior to acquiring the PMD lock.

This patch addresses all of these issues by invoking check_pmd(), ensuring PMVW_MIGRATION is not set and checks whether a split raced us we do for PMD THP and migration entries.

Instead of checking for a subset of the cases after taking the pmd_lock(), put device-private along with pmd_trans_huge() and pmd_is_migration_entry(). Also remove thp_migration_supported() as it is already guarded by pmd_is_migration_entry().

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: fix Raspberry Pi 1 build, per David]

AnalysisAI

Memory corruption in the Linux kernel's mm/page_vma_mapped subsystem allows a local low-privileged attacker to trigger kernel memory corruption, potentially leading to privilege escalation or system crash. The flaw stems from incomplete handling of device-private PMD entries in the rmap walk code: when PVMW_MIGRATION is set, the caller incorrectly interprets a device-private PMD entry as a migration entry, producing undefined behavior. No public exploit has been identified at time of analysis, and EPSS at 0.20% (10th percentile) indicates low current exploitation interest, but the high CVSS 7.8 with full C/I/A impact reflects the severity of kernel memory corruption.

Technical ContextAI

The vulnerable code resides in mm/page_vma_mapped.c within the Linux kernel's reverse-mapping (rmap) walk subsystem. Commit 65edfda6f3f2 introduced device-private PMD entries (used by hardware like GPUs for direct memory access) but failed to update page_vma_mapped_walk() to handle them correctly. Two distinct issues exist: (1) check_pmd() is never called for device-private PMDs, meaning overlapping PFN ranges go unchecked; (2) when the PVMW_MIGRATION flag is set by callers such as migration code, the returned PMD entry is assumed to be a migration entry - but a device-private entry returned here causes the caller to misinterpret its structure, resulting in kernel memory corruption. A secondary race condition was introduced by commit 146287290023, which enabled device-private THP splitting, creating a window where a PMD split can race the lock acquisition. The CWE is not formally assigned, but the root cause class is a type confusion/missing case in a state machine (analogous to CWE-843, Type Confusion) combined with a TOCTOU race (CWE-362). The CPE cpe:2.3:a:linux:linux confirms this affects the mainline Linux kernel.

RemediationAI

The primary fix is upgrading to Linux kernel 7.1.6 (stable) or 7.2-rc5 (release candidate), which incorporate the upstream fix commits ab6209f4b48a98ef14d6766acdb62aa9bb32e670 and f84ca9b1888d8fce7dfefe0e750fa971f8797486 (available at https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ab6209f4b48a98ef14d6766acdb62aa9bb32e670 and https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f84ca9b1888d8fce7dfefe0e750fa971f8797486). Distributions should apply these commits as backports to their supported kernel versions. As a compensating control on systems where upgrading is not immediately possible, restricting or disabling device-private memory support (CONFIG_HMM_MIRROR, device-specific modules for GPUs/accelerators) eliminates the reachable code path - the trade-off is loss of GPU direct memory access functionality. Restricting local user access to relevant hardware devices via cgroup device policies or removing untrusted local user accounts reduces exposure further. Kernel live-patching (kpatch, livepatch) is a viable interim option for distributions that support it, avoiding downtime while applying the fix.

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 Affected

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EUVD-2026-55549 vulnerability details – vuln.today

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