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Fencer Intel
medium 5.5

CVE-2026-53064 json

dm cache: fix null-deref with concurrent writes in passthrough mode

published 4mo ago modified 5d ago also EUVD-2026-38932

cvss
5.5
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.1%
EPSS 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 2%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

dm cache: fix null-deref with concurrent writes in passthrough mode

In passthrough mode, when dm-cache starts to invalidate a cache entry and bio prison cell lock fails due to concurrent write to the same cached block, mg->cell remains NULL. The error path in invalidate_complete() attempts to unlock and free the cell unconditionally, causing a NULL pointer dereference:

KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000000-0x0000000000000007] CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 134 Comm: fio Not tainted 6.19.0-rc7 #3 PREEMPT RIP: 0010:dm_cell_unlock_v2+0x3f/0x210 <snip> Call Trace: invalidate_complete+0xef/0x430 map_bio+0x130f/0x1a10 cache_map+0x320/0x6b0 __map_bio+0x458/0x510 dm_submit_bio+0x40e/0x16d0 __submit_bio+0x419/0x870 <snip>

Reproduce steps:

1. Create a cache device

dmsetup create cmeta --table "0 8192 linear /dev/sdc 0" dmsetup create cdata --table "0 131072 linear /dev/sdc 8192" dmsetup create corig --table "0 262144 linear /dev/sdc 262144" dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mapper/cmeta bs=4k count=1 oflag=direct dmsetup create cache --table "0 262144 cache /dev/mapper/cmeta \ /dev/mapper/cdata /dev/mapper/corig 128 2 metadata2 writethrough smq 0"

2. Promote the first data block into cache

fio --filename=/dev/mapper/cache --name=populate --rw=write --bs=4k \ --direct=1 --size=64k

3. Reload the cache into passthrough mode

dmsetup suspend cache dmsetup reload cache --table "0 262144 cache /dev/mapper/cmeta \ /dev/mapper/cdata /dev/mapper/corig 128 2 metadata2 passthrough smq 0" dmsetup resume cache

4. Write to the first cached block concurrently

fio --filename=/dev/mapper/cache --name test --rw=randwrite --bs=4k \ --randrepeat=0 --direct=1 --numjobs=2 --size 64k

Fix by checking if mg->cell is valid before attempting to unlock it.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 5.10.258, 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-2026-53064

  • 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-2026-53064

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

  • kernel-rt Real Time Module 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.7.72.1
  • kernel-syms-rt Real Time Module 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.7.72.1
  • kernel-source-rt Real Time Module 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.7.72.1
  • kernel-64kb SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.78.1
  • kernel-syms SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.78.1
  • kernel-azure SLE Module for Public Cloud 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.78.1
  • kernel-source SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP7, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.78.1
  • kernel-default SLE Workstation Extension 15 SP7, SLE Module for Legacy 15 SP7, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 +2 more 6.4.0-150700.53.78.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2026:3810-1SUSE-SU-2026:3790-1SUSE-SU-2026:23244-1SUSE-SU-2026:23241-1SUSE-SU-2026:23194-1SUSE-SU-2026:23193-1

  • kernel-rt openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.37.1
  • dtb-aarch64 openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.37.1
  • kernel-64kb openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.37.1
  • kernel-syms openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.37.1
  • kernel-azure openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.37.1
  • kernel-obs-qa openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.37.1
  • kernel-source openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.37.1
  • kernel-default openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.37.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:21555-1

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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-2026-53064 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: dm cache: fix null-deref with concurrent writes in passthrough mode

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • 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
    affected: no fix available “Fix deferred”

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

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
5d ago

Exploit prediction

0.12% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 2% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-11).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/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.