CVE-2026-74518
NVD analysis in progress
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/hugetlb: fix list corruption in allocate_file_region_entries() allocate_file_region_entries() tops up resv->region_cache with freshly allocated file_region descriptors. The allocation uses GFP_KERNEL, so resv->lock is dropped around it: the new entries are gathered on a stack-local list head, allocated_regions, and spliced into resv->region_cache once the lock is re-acquired. The splice used list_splice(), which moves the entries but does not re-initialize the source head, so allocated_regions is left pointing at an entry that now lives on resv->region_cache. The top-up runs in a while loop that re-checks the cache deficit after re-acquiring the lock. For a shared mapping the resv_map is shared by every mapper of the hugetlbfs inode, so a concurrent region_chg()/region_add()/region_del() on the same resv_map can consume cache entries during the unlocked window and force a second iteration. That iteration calls list_add() on the stale head and corrupts the list; with CONFIG_DEBUG_LIST the __list_add_valid() check trips: list_add corruption. next->prev should be prev (ffffc900011ff7f8), but was ffff88814c281460. (next=ffff88814c545640). kernel BUG at lib/list_debug.c:31! allocate_file_region_entries+0x191/0x420 region_chg+0x267/0x300 hugetlb_reserve_pages+0x387/0xc80 hugetlbfs_file_mmap+0x2ce/0x3f0 mmap_region+0x1348/0x1a80 do_mmap+0x85e/0xb90 vm_mmap_pgoff+0x18c/0x330 ksys_mmap_pgoff+0x2a1/0x3e0 do_syscall_64+0xd7/0x420 Without CONFIG_DEBUG_LIST the bad list_add() silently links a kernel-stack address into resv->region_cache, leading to later use-after-free. This was observed as a real host panic on a dense KVM host where a QEMU guest-RAM hugetlbfs file was mapped MAP_SHARED by both QEMU and a separate SPDK/DPDK vhost-user target, generating concurrent region_* traffic on one shared resv_map. Use list_splice_init() so the source head is re-initialized empty after each splice, making the retry loop safe.
What this means
- Exposure
- Exploitable with local access to the machine, with an ordinary user account and with no action from the victim.
- Impact
- An attacker can read sensitive data, modify or destroy data and take the service offline.
- Likelihood
- Its EPSS score stays low: nothing points to imminent exploitation, which is no reason to leave it unpatched.
What to doFold into the next patch cycle.
Read automatically from the CVSS vector, the weakness type (CWE) and the EPSS score. The technical description above remains the one published by NIST.