CVE Catalog

CVE-2026-64295

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

A vulnerability was found in the Linux kernel's page_ext iteration API. The page_ext_iter_next() function fails to validate whether the PFN belongs to a valid section, which during memory hotplug can cause a NULL pointer dereference. The issue occurs when the iterator exceeds the page count and accesses uninitialized memory.

Risk Assessment

The risk involves potential system crashes (kernel panic) during memory hotplug operations, which can disrupt critical services and lead to system unavailability.

Recommendation

Immediately update the Linux kernel to a version containing the fix that enforces count limits in the page_ext_iter_next iterator, preventing access to invalid PFNs.

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

See all
Original NVD description (English source)

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm: page_ext: add count limit to page_ext_iter_next to prevent invalid PFN access The page_ext iteration API does not validate if the PFN still belongs to a valid section while advancing the iterator. When dynamically adding memory in the hotplug path, it can lead to a NULL pointer dereference during page_ext_lookup at the boundary of the last valid section when iterator count equals __pgcount. The for_each_page_ext() macro calls page_ext_iter_next() as its loop increment. for_each_page_ext() does a "__page_ext = page_ext_iter_next(&__iter)" at the end. This causes page_ext_iter_next() to increment iter->index past __pgcount and call page_ext_lookup(start_pfn + __pgcount). During memory hotplug (online), the PFN at start_pfn + __pgcount may belong to a section that has not yet been initialized, causing page_ext_lookup() to trigger a NULL pointer dereference. [ 14.555124][ T846] Call trace: [ 14.555125][ T846] lookup_page_ext+0x6c/0x108 (P) [ 14.555127][ T846] page_ext_lookup+0x30/0x3c [ 14.555129][ T846] __reset_page_owner+0x11c/0x260 [ 14.571201][ T846] __free_pages_ok+0x5e8/0x8e0 [ 14.571204][ T846] __free_pages_core+0x78/0xf0 [ 14.571206][ T846] generic_online_page+0x14/0x24 [ 14.597782][ T846] online_pages+0x178/0x30c [ 14.597784][ T846] memory_block_change_state+0x284/0x32c [ 14.597787][ T846] memory_subsys_online+0x4c/0x64 [ 14.597789][ T846] device_online+0x88/0xb0 [ 14.597791][ T846] online_memory_block+0x30/0x40 [ 14.597793][ T846] walk_memory_blocks+0xac/0xe8 [ 14.597794][ T846] add_memory_resource+0x280/0x298 [ 14.656161][ T846] add_memory+0x60/0x98 Move the iteration boundary enforcement inside the iterator functions, so callers cannot inadvertently access beyond the requested range.

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