What is CVE-2020-36312?

CVE-2020-36312 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux Kernel, classified under Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime. CVSS score: 5.5/10. Published 2021-04-07.

How severe is CVE-2020-36312?

Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.5 out of 10.

Vulnerability in Linux Kernel

CVE-2020-36312

An issue was discovered in the Linux kernel before 5.8.10. virt/kvm/kvm_main.c has a kvm_io_bus_unregister_dev memory leak upon a kmalloc failure, aka CID-f65886606c2d.

Published 2021-04-07 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 5.5 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.003 (21.9th percentile), scored 2026-10-01.

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 22nd percentile — 21.9% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.003 · newest: 0.003 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Linux Kernel

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-401 — Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime

References

git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/ (Patch, Vendor Advisory)
cdn.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v5.x/ChangeLog-5.8.10 (Release Notes, Vendor Advisory)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2020-36312?: CVE-2020-36312 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux Kernel, classified under Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime. CVSS score: 5.5/10. Published 2021-04-07.
How severe is CVE-2020-36312?: Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.5 out of 10.