CVE Catalog

CVE-2026-64180

MediumCVSS 5.5
Published: Updated: Translated: NVD NIST

Exploitation Probability (EPSS)

Low risk
0.16%

5th percentile - higher than 5% of all known CVEs

Summary

In the Linux kernel, a memory block device reference leak was found during memory removal. The function remove_memory_blocks_and_altmaps() acquires a reference via find_memory_block() but never releases it, causing a device reference leak.

Risk Assessment

This reference leak can lead to system instability, kernel resource exhaustion, and potential memory management issues, especially in environments with frequent memory hotplug operations.

Recommendation

Immediately update the Linux kernel to a version containing the fix that drops the reference after retrieving mem->altmap and clearing mem->altmap, before removing the memory block device.

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

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Original NVD description (English source)

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/memory_hotplug: fix memory block reference leak on remove Patch series "mm: Fix memory block leaks and locking", v2. This series fixes two memory block device reference leaks and one locking issue around the per-memory_block hwpoison counter. This patch (of 2): remove_memory_blocks_and_altmaps() looks up each memory block with find_memory_block(), which acquires a reference to the memory block device. That reference is never dropped on this path, resulting in a leaked device reference when removing memory blocks and their altmaps. Drop the reference after retrieving mem->altmap and clearing mem->altmap, before removing the memory block device.

Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS