Skip to main content

Linux Kernel EUVDEUVD-2026-86111

| CVE-2026-97513 HIGH
2026-09-24 Linux GHSA-rvcg-65g6-42r4
7.8
CVSS 3.1 · Vendor: Linux
View

Attack ChainAIDerived

Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain

  1. Access
    Gain local access to wave5 V4L2 device
  2. Delivery
    Open codec instance and queue work
  3. Exploit
    Close instance to trigger m2m_ctx release
  4. Execution
    IRQ thread grabs spinlock in race window
  5. Persist
    Dereference freed/NULL m2m_ctx
  6. Impact
    Kernel oops / denial of service

Vulnerability Assessment

Exploitation Conditions

Requires local access to the chips-media wave5 VPU M2M V4L2 device node (e.g., /dev/videoN, generally the 'video' group), a kernel built with the wave5 codec driver enabled, and the corresponding Chips&Media WAVE5 video-processing hardware present. The bug is a race: the attacker must close/release a codec instance while a codec interrupt is being serviced, so the IRQ thread acquires the spinlock between m2m_ctx release and the instance's removal from the active list. Limiting factors: local-only vector, driver present on only specific SoCs, and non-deterministic timing window make reliable triggering difficult; the observed outcome is a NULL-pointer dereference (crash), not confirmed code execution.

Impact

This is a CWE-416 use-after-free / NULL-pointer dereference race in the Linux kernel's chips-media wave5 VPU (video codec) driver, triggered when the IRQ thread grabs the instance spinlock in the narrow window between m2m_ctx release and wave5_release removing the stream instance from the active-instances list. The NVD CVSS of 7.8 (AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/C:H/I:H/A:H) overstates real-world risk: the flaw is a teardown-vs-IRQ timing race, so AC:L is optimistic (winning the race is not deterministic → AC:H), and the demonstrated impact is a NULL-pointer dereference/oops, which is availability-dominant rather than the full C:H/I:H/A:H triad claimed. No EPSS score, no CISA KEV listing, and no public exploit are present in the data, so there is no signal of active or automatable exploitation. Net: a legitimate local DoS-class bug worth patching on affected systems, but not a broad emergency - it demands local access to the wave5 V4L2 device and precise timing, and the affected driver is deployed on only a small subset of hardware. Missing data to note: CWE is 'N/A' in the feed (should be CWE-416), and the vendor advisory provides only stable-tree commit hashes, not a narrative severity rating.

Exploit ScenarioDerived

A local user with access to the wave5 V4L2 memory-to-memory video device (e.g., /dev/videoN, typically the video group) opens a decode/encode instance and then closes it while codec IRQ processing is still in flight. If the IRQ thread acquires the instance spinlock in the window after m2m_ctx is freed but before the instance is removed from the active list, it dereferences the freed/NULL m2m_ctx, causing a kernel oops and denial of service. No public exploit or POC is identified at time of analysis, and exploitation requires winning a race, so reliability is low.

This Week Schedule remediation this week. Why: HIGH severity (CVSS 7.0-8.9).
Patch available 0.1% exploitation probability (EPSS)

Get an e-mail when this CVE is exploited, patched or re-scored. Free account.

Alert me

AnalysisAIv1 – Sep 25, 2026

A use-after-free race in the Linux kernel's chips-media wave5 VPU (video codec) driver allows a local user who can open the codec's V4L2 mem2mem device node to crash the kernel: if the driver's IRQ thread acquires the instance spinlock in the narrow window between m2m_ctx release and wave5_release() removing the stream instance from the active-instances list, the IRQ handler walks a freed/stale context and dereferences a NULL pointer. The vendor-listed CVSS of 7.8 (AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N, C:H/I:H/A:H) reflects a worst-case write-after-free scenario, but our assessment scores it lower (AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:H) because the concrete observed outcome is a kernel crash rather than confirmed code execution, exploitation is local-only, and the race window is non-deterministic; the affected hardware/driver is present only on specific SoCs. No public exploit code or in-the-wild exploitation has been identified at time of analysis (not in CISA KEV), and vendor-released stable fixes exist.

RemediationAI

Vendor-released patch: update to Linux 6.18.53 or the 7.2 series (or later), or apply the stable backports 04cda0b5c4ca3f61cbc86e41ead3c462c8cfd659 and 7cdbd7bb21949a8fda10c7104a2b12ee363cbf5c from https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/04cda0b5c4ca3f61cbc86e41ead3c462c8cfd659 and https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/7cdbd7bb21949a8fda10c7104a2b12ee363cbf5c; note these commits correct the release-path ordering so the instance is unlinked from the active list before m2m_ctx is freed. Until patching is possible, the most effective compensating control is to remove the attack primitive by denying untrusted users access to the codec device nodes: enforce 0660 root:video ownership on /dev/video* via udev, remove non-privileged accounts from the 'video' group, or add SELinux/AppArmor rules blocking open() on those nodes - the trade-off is that legitimate local applications lose hardware-accelerated encode/decode. Alternatively, blacklist or do not load the wave5 module (modprobe.d blacklist/rmmod) on machines that do not require the hardware codec; this eliminates the vulnerability entirely but forces fallback to software codecs with higher CPU load and lower throughput/power efficiency. Because triggering depends on a tight, non-deterministic race with the interrupt handler, no runtime workaround can be considered fully reliable short of the driver-level patch.

Affected VersionsENISA

Linux 0 <6.18.53
Linux patch: 7.2
Linux patch: 6.18.53
Linux 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 <04cda0b5c4ca3f61cbc86e41ead3c462c8cfd659
Linux 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 <7cdbd7bb21949a8fda10c7104a2b12ee363cbf5c

Affected Packages

euvd linux fix: 6.18.53

Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)

Affects your stack

Affects 1 package in euvd

Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.

Technical ContextAI · show details

The wave5 driver lives under drivers/media/platform/chips-media/ and drives Chips&Media WAVE5-class hardware video encode/decode blocks through the V4L2 mem2mem (m2m) framework, exposing /dev/videoN nodes that userspace opens to run codec sessions. Each opened instance has an m2m_ctx and is tracked on a list of active instances guarded by a spinlock; an IRQ thread (bottom half) also takes that lock to locate the instance belonging to a completed hardware transaction. The bug is a classic lifetime/ordering error in the release path: wave5_release frees the m2m_ctx before removing the stream instance from the active list, so an interrupt serviced in that gap lets the IRQ thread look up and use already-freed state. This is CWE-416 (use-after-free) with the practical manifestation described as a NULL-pointer dereference (CWE-476) causing a kernel panic; the upstream description explicitly frames it as a 'possible' use-after-free, and the CVE record provides no CWE mapping. The affected code is only reachable on kernels built with the wave5 codec driver enabled and only on SoCs that physically embed the corresponding Chips&Media WAVE5/WAVE6 video-processing block, which substantially narrows the real-world attack surface compared to the AV:L/PR:L parameters.

Know when the next one hits your stack

  • Watch products and get an email when something new is published
  • Check this CVE against your own stack and servers
  • Exploit and PoC references, threat intelligence from 22 sources

No credit card · 7-day full trial

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 5.3 MEDIUM

Local device access needed (PR:L, AV:L); success depends on winning a teardown-vs-IRQ race (AC:H); impact is a kernel crash (A:H) with no demonstrated disclosure/integrity beyond memory corruption (C:N/I:L).

3.1 AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:L/A:H
4.0 AV:L/AC:H/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:L/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
Red Hat 5.5 MEDIUM

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
CVSS changed
Sep 25, 2026 - 05:23 NVD
7.8 (HIGH)
Patch available
Sep 24, 2026 - 17:03 EUVD
CVE Published
Sep 24, 2026 - 16:05 cve.org
UNKNOWN (no severity yet)
CVE Published
Sep 24, 2026 - 16:05 cve.org
HIGH 7.8

DescriptionCVE.org

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

media: chips-media: wave5: Release m2m_ctx after Instance Removed from List

Possible use after free if IRQ thread manages to obtain spinlock between m2m_ctx release and wave5_release function removing stream instance from list of active instances. The IRQ thread looks for the m2m_ctx which is freed so null pointer dereference occurs.

Executive ViewAI

Why It Matters

The Linux kernel's chips-media wave5 VPU driver contains a use-after-free race condition that can be triggered by a local authenticated user, leading to a kernel crash and potential denial of service. This affects organizations running Linux on specific systems-on-chip (SoCs) that include this video codec hardware, such as certain embedded or media processing devices. While the race window is non-deterministic and no public exploit identified at time of analysis, a successful attack could cause service interruptions, making patch prioritization important for affected hardware.

Business Impact: Medium
Compensating Controls

Apply vendor patch.

Threat Intelligence Overview

EPSS Score
0.1%
Top 99% exploitable
Prevalence
Low
Chips&Media WAVE5 VPU codec driver - niche SoC hardware, rarely enabled
Data Quality
5 sources
Confidence: Medium

How this decision was reached

The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.

SignalValue
Severity HIGH
CISA KEV No
Public POC No
EPSS 0.1%
Patch available Yes
Active threat No
Deciding rule
HIGH severity (CVSS 7.0-8.9)
What every action level means
Emergency Immediate action required. Criteria: CRITICAL + in CISA KEV (actively exploited) without patch, OR CRITICAL + EPSS > 30% without patch, OR CRITICAL + active threat signals without patch.
Act Now Prioritize within 24-48h. Criteria: in KEV with patch available, OR CRITICAL + public POC, OR HIGH + EPSS > 10%, OR CRITICAL + active threat, OR any CRITICAL severity.
This Week Schedule remediation this week. Criteria: HIGH severity (CVSS 7.0-8.9). Patch within normal change window.
This Month Plan within 30 days. Criteria: MEDIUM severity (CVSS 4.0-6.9), lower exploitation probability. Include in regular patch cycle.
Monitor Track and reassess. Criteria: LOW severity (CVSS 0.1-3.9), minimal exploitation risk. No immediate action needed.

SSVC AssessmentENISA

SSVC Decision· derived
Defer
Exploitation· derived
None
System Exposure· derived
Small
Automatable· derived
No
Human Impact
Medium

Priority Score

39
Low Medium High Critical
KEV: 0
EPSS: 0
CVSS: +39
PoC: 0
Weaponized: 0
Threat intel: 0
Gov advisory: 0

Attack Technique

Denial of Service attacks render applications or systems unavailable by overwhelming resources or triggering failure conditions.

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

This site uses cookies essential for authentication and security. No tracking or analytics cookies are used. Privacy Policy