IM
IronMonkey Threat Research

CVE-2026-43303 HIGH

Published: 2026-05-08 | Last Modified: 2026-09-08 | Status: Modified

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/page_alloc: clear page->private in free_pages_prepare() Several subsystems (slub, shmem, ttm, etc.) use page->private but don't clear it before freeing pages. When these pages are later allocated as high-order pages and split via split_page(), tail pages retain stale page->private values. This causes a use-after-free in the swap subsystem. The swap code uses page->private to track swap count continuations, assuming freshly allocated pages have page->private == 0. When stale values are present, swap_count_continued() incorrectly assumes the continuation list is valid and iterates over uninitialized page->lru containing LIST_POISON values, causing a crash: KASAN: maybe wild-memory-access in range [0xdead000000000100-0xdead000000000107] RIP: 0010:__do_sys_swapoff+0x1151/0x1860 Fix this by clearing page->private in free_pages_prepare(), ensuring all freed pages have clean state regardless of previous use.

CVSS Metrics

Base Score: 7.8 (HIGH)

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Attack VectorLOCAL
Attack ComplexityLOW
Privileges RequiredLOW
User InteractionNONE
ScopeUNCHANGED
Confidentiality ImpactHIGH
Integrity ImpactHIGH
Availability ImpactHIGH

Source: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

Type: Secondary

Exploitability Score: 1.8

Impact Score: 5.9

Weaknesses

Source Type Description
[email protected] Primary
en CWE-416

Affected Products

Vendor Product Version Update Type
linux linux_kernel * <built-in method update of dict object at 0x7d23549fc480> Operating System
linux linux_kernel * <built-in method update of dict object at 0x7d24243df000> Operating System
linux linux_kernel 5.18 <built-in method update of dict object at 0x7d2364d6a600> Operating System
linux linux_kernel 5.18 <built-in method update of dict object at 0x7d24245bb600> Operating System
linux linux_kernel 5.18 <built-in method update of dict object at 0x7d23549fff00> Operating System
linux linux_kernel 5.18 <built-in method update of dict object at 0x7d24243df400> Operating System
linux linux_kernel 5.18 <built-in method update of dict object at 0x7d24245b9680> Operating System
linux linux_kernel 5.18 <built-in method update of dict object at 0x7d24245bb0c0> Operating System

Affected Configurations

Operator: OR

Vulnerable CPE
Yes cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Yes cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Yes cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:5.18:-:*:*:*:*:*:*
Yes cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:5.18:rc4:*:*:*:*:*:*
Yes cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:5.18:rc5:*:*:*:*:*:*
Yes cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:5.18:rc6:*:*:*:*:*:*
Yes cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:5.18:rc7:*:*:*:*:*:*
Yes cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:5.18:rc9:*:*:*:*:*:*
Notification
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