Vulnerability in Linux

CVE-2026-74311

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: virtio: rtc: tear down old virtqueues before restore virtio_device_restore() resets the device and restores the negotiated features before calling ->restore(). viortc_freeze() intentionally leaves the existing virtqueues in place so the alarm queue can still wake the system, but viortc_restore() immediately calls viortc_init_vqs() without first deleting those old queues. If virtqueue reinitialization fails on virtio-pci, the transport error path can run vp_del_vqs() against a newly allocated vp_dev->vqs array while vdev->vqs still contains the old virtqueues. vp_del_vqs() then looks up queue state through the new array and can dereference a NULL info pointer in vp_del_vq(), crashing the guest kernel during restore. This can also happen during a non-faulty reinitialization, when one of the vp_find_vqs_msix() attempts is unsuccessful before a later attempt would succeed. Delete the stale virtqueues before rebuilding them. If restore fails before virtio_device_ready(), reuse the remove path to stop the device. Once the device is ready, return errors directly instead of deleting the virtqueues again.

Published · last modified .

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.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.002 (6.0th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 6th percentile — 6.0% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS trend (30 days)EPSS over the last 30 days for CVE-2026-74311: held from 0.001 to 0.002.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.001 · newest: 0.002 · change: +0.000

Affected products

  • Linux — versions 7.2-rc1, 6.16, 7.2

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-74311?
CVE-2026-74311 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux. CVSS score: 7.8/10. Published 2026-08-15.
How severe is CVE-2026-74311?
High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.8 out of 10.