CVE Catalog

CVE-2026-68178

HighCVSS 7.8
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, the NSM misc driver does not set the owner field in file operations, so opening /dev/nsm does not take a module reference. If the driver is a module, an open file descriptor can survive rmmod, leading to calls into unloaded code. The fix sets owner to THIS_MODULE.

Risk Assessment

The risk includes use-after-free and potential privilege escalation or system crash after module removal.

Recommendation

Update the Linux kernel to a version with the fix that ensures proper module reference while file descriptors are open.

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

See all
Original NVD description (English source)

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: misc: nsm: pin the module while the device is open misc_open() installs a misc driver's file operations with fops_get(), which pins file_operations::owner before replacing the file's f_op. The NSM misc device leaves nsm_dev_fops.owner unset, so opening /dev/nsm does not take a module reference on the nsm driver. If the driver is built as a module, an open file descriptor can therefore survive rmmod of the module that provides its ioctl callbacks. A later ioctl through that descriptor can call into unloaded module text. Set nsm_dev_fops.owner to THIS_MODULE so the misc core holds the module while any /dev/nsm file descriptor is open, matching the lifetime expectation for the installed file operations.

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