Vulnerability in Linux
CVE-2026-63951
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: zram: fix use-after-free in zram_writeback_endio A crash was observed in zram_writeback_endio due to a NULL pointer dereference in wake_up. The root cause is a race condition between the bio completion handler (zram_writeback_endio) and the writeback task. In zram_writeback_endio, wake_up() is called on &wb_ctl->done_wait after releasing wb_ctl->done_lock. This creates a race window where the writeback task can see num_inflight become 0, return, and free wb_ctl before zram_writeback_endio calls wake_up(). CPU 0 (zram_writeback_endio) CPU 1 (writeback_store) ============================ ============================ zram_writeback_slots zram_submit_wb_request zram_submit_wb_request wait_event(wb_ctl->done_wait) spin_lock(&wb_ctl->done_lock); list_add(&req->entry, &wb_ctl->done_reqs); spin_unlock(&wb_ctl->done_lock); wake_up(&wb_ctl->done_wait); zram_complete_done_reqs spin_lock(&wb_ctl->done_lock); list_add(&req->entry, &wb_ctl->done_reqs); spin_unlock(&wb_ctl->done_lock); while (num_inflight) > 0) spin_lock(&wb_ctl->done_lock); list_del(&req->entry); spin_unlock(&wb_ctl->done_lock); // num_inflight becomes 0 atomic_dec(num_inflight); // Leave zram_writeback_slots // Free wb_ctl release_wb_ctl(wb_ctl); // UAF crash! wake_up(&wb_ctl->done_wait); This patch fixes this race by using RCU. By protecting wb_ctl with rcu_read_lock() in zram_writeback_endio and using kfree_rcu() to free it, we ensure that wb_ctl remains valid during the execution of zram_writeback_endio.
EPSS: 0.002 (6.0th percentile) — read the EPSS interpretation.
CVSS v3 metric
CVSS v3 base score 7.8 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.
Affected products
- Linux — versions f405066a1f0db818270f49a5e96be329bcabde1e, 6.19, 0
References
Frequently asked questions
- What is CVE-2026-63951?
- CVE-2026-63951 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux. CVSS score: 7.8/10. Published 2026-07-19.
- How severe is CVE-2026-63951?
- High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.8 out of 10.