Bug 2493728 (CVE-2026-53281)

Summary: CVE-2026-53281 kernel: iommu/vt-d: Avoid NULL pointer dereference or refcount corruption
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security <prodsec-ir-bot>
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Priority: medium    
Version: unspecifiedCC: rhel-process-autobot, watson-tool-maintainers
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security
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OS: Linux   
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A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's Input-Output Memory Management Unit (IOMMU) virtualized direct memory access (VT-d) component. This vulnerability occurs when the system attempts to perform cleanup operations without a valid device identifier, leading to a null pointer dereference or incorrect management of resource references. An attacker with local access could exploit this to cause a system crash, resulting in a denial of service (DoS).
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-06-26 21:03:33 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

iommu/vt-d: Avoid NULL pointer dereference or refcount corruption

Commit 60f030f7418d ("iommu/vt-d: Avoid use of NULL after WARN_ON_ONCE")
fixed a NULL pointer dereference in an unlikely situation partly.

If dev_pasid is not found in the dev_pasids list, it remains NULL.
However, the teardown operations are executed unconditionally, this lead
to a NULL pointer dereference or refcount corruption.

If the domain was never attached to this IOMMU, info will be NULL, which
would cause an immediate dereference when checking --info->refcnt.

Even if info is not NULL, decrementing the refcount without having removed
a valid PASID might unbalance the count. This could lead to premature
dropping of the refcount to 0, potentially causing a use-after-free for the
remaining active devices sharing the domain.

Fix it by returning early if dev_pasid is NULL, before executing the
teardown operations.

Issue found by AI review and suggested by Kevin Tian.
https://sashiko.dev/#/patchset/20260421031347.1408890-1-zhenzhong.duan%40intel.com

Comment 1 Mauro Matteo Cascella 2026-06-29 20:07:32 UTC
Upstream advisory:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/2026062615-CVE-2026-53281-bce7@gregkh/T