CVE-2026-53281

iommu/vt-d: Avoid NULL pointer dereference or refcount corruption

HIGH
8.8
CVSS Score
Published: June 26, 2026 at 07:40 PM UTC
Updated: October 21, 2026 at 01:19 PM UTC
2 products affected across 2 vendorsLinux KernelEnterprise Linux

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Severity
HIGH8.8
Exploit prediction
EPSS 0.2%
SSVC
No known exploit

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: iommu/vt-d: Avoid NULL pointer dereference or refcount corruption Commit 60f030f7418d ("iommu/vt-d: Avoid use of NULL after WARN_ON_ONCE") fixed a NULL pointer dereference in an unlikely situation partly. If dev_pasid is not found in the dev_pasids list, it remains NULL. However, the teardown operations are executed unconditionally, this lead to a NULL pointer dereference or refcount corruption. If the domain was never attached to this IOMMU, info will be NULL, which would cause an immediate dereference when checking --info->refcnt. Even if info is not NULL, decrementing the refcount without having removed a valid PASID might unbalance the count. This could lead to premature dropping of the refcount to 0, potentially causing a use-after-free for the remaining active devices sharing the domain. Fix it by returning early if dev_pasid is NULL, before executing the teardown operations. Issue found by AI review and suggested by Kevin Tian. https://sashiko.dev/#/patchset/20260421031347.1408890-1-zhenzhong.duan%40intel.com

Affected

Our own answer: ranges merged, affected separated from platform-only, with confidence and review flags.

6.12.57 ≤ v < 6.136.13.3 ≤ v < 6.18.336.19 ≤ v < 7.0.106.12.576.13.360f030f7418d3f1d94f2fb207fe3080e1844630b68ec78beb4a3fb0877cbaaf49758c85410c059777.17.1 rc17.1 rc27.1 rc3df96876be3b064aefc493f760e0639765d13ed0d
Vendor states this is fixed in 79ea2feb917b05366b49d85573c9c5331f043b2c (fixed)
Vendor states this is fixed in 9022cb9ac0c2a72a57fa8ebf92ac74f953ca0153 (fixed)
Vendor states this is fixed in cdfe3c9f2c9e28a8651ee463c88ad191ced2f840 (fixed)
Vendor states this is fixed in 6.12.114 (unaffected)
Affected range stops below 6.13, so it looks safe — our inference, not a vendor statement
Vendor states this is fixed in 6.14 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 6.18.33 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 7.0.10 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 7.1 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 0:5.14.0-687.31.1.el9_8 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 0:6.12.0-211.40.1.el10_2 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 6 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 7 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 8 (unaffected)

References (9)

Third Party Advisory
Source: 0b0ca135-0b70-47e7-9f44-1890c2a1c46c
https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-53281
Issue TrackingThird Party Advisory
Source: 0b0ca135-0b70-47e7-9f44-1890c2a1c46c
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2493728
Third Party Advisory
Source: 0b0ca135-0b70-47e7-9f44-1890c2a1c46c
https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/2026/cve-2026-53281.json
Source: 0b0ca135-0b70-47e7-9f44-1890c2a1c46c
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:47017
Source: 0b0ca135-0b70-47e7-9f44-1890c2a1c46c
https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2026:47040

SSVC — Action Prioritization

SSVCNo known exploitNot automatableTotal impact

SSVC signals action urgency (what to patch first), separate from CVSS which measures severity.

CVSS

8.8HIGHLinux
Vector?

Quick Info

StatusMODIFIED
CWE
CWE-476

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