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Fencer Intel
critical 9.8

CVE-2026-53046 in the critical feed json

ksmbd: fix use-after-free from async crypto on Qualcomm crypto engine

published 4mo ago modified 3mo ago also EUVD-2026-38914

cvss
9.8
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.7%
EPSS 0.7% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 54%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

ksmbd: fix use-after-free from async crypto on Qualcomm crypto engine

ksmbd_crypt_message() sets a NULL completion callback on AEAD requests and does not handle the -EINPROGRESS return code from async hardware crypto engines like the Qualcomm Crypto Engine (QCE). When QCE returns -EINPROGRESS, ksmbd treats it as an error and immediately frees the request while the hardware DMA operation is still in flight. The DMA completion callback then dereferences freed memory, causing a NULL pointer crash:

pc : qce_skcipher_done+0x24/0x174 lr : vchan_complete+0x230/0x27c ... el1h_64_irq+0x68/0x6c ksmbd_free_work_struct+0x20/0x118 [ksmbd] ksmbd_exit_file_cache+0x694/0xa4c [ksmbd]

Use the standard crypto_wait_req() pattern with crypto_req_done() as the completion callback, matching the approach used by the SMB client in fs/smb/client/smb2ops.c. This properly handles both synchronous engines (immediate return) and async engines (-EINPROGRESS followed by callback notification).

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 5.15.209, 6.1.175, 6.6.141, 6.12.91, 6.18.33, 7.0.10, 7.1
  • linux Debian 12 6.1.176-1
  • linux Debian 13 6.12.94-1
  • linux Debian 14 7.0.10-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-53046

  • linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-186.196
  • linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-136.136
  • linux Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-28.28
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1112.119
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1061.64
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1009.9
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1112.122
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1064.72

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2026-53046

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

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Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2026-53046 updated

kernel: ksmbd: fix use-after-free from async crypto on Qualcomm crypto engine

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

0.72% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 54% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-11).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 9.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Weakness
Technology feeds

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.