VulnerabilityPublished 26 Jun 2026Updated 6 Jul 2026

CVE-2026-53308: Linux kernel · Memory Leak

Source GCVE Database

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 5.5 Medium.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 14:05 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

5.5Medium

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 5% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

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

Attack Vector: Local
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: None
Integrity: None
Availability: High

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Local: The vulnerable component is not bound to the network stack and the attacker’s path is via read/write/execute capabilities. Either: the attacker exploits the vulnerability by accessing the target system locally (e.g., keyboard, console), or remotely (e.g., SSH); or the attacker relies on User Interaction by another person to perform actions required to exploit the vulnerability (e.g., tricking a legitimate user into opening a malicious document).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: Low: The attacker is authorized with (i.e., requires) privileges that provide basic user capabilities that could normally affect only settings and files owned by a user. Alternatively, an attacker with Low privileges may have the ability to cause an impact only to non-sensitive resources.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
Confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the impacted component.
Integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the impacted component.
Availability: High: There is total loss of availability, resulting in the attacker being able to fully deny access to resources in the impacted component; this loss is either sustained (while the attacker continues to deliver the attack) or persistent (the condition persists even after the attack has completed). Alternatively, the attacker has the ability to deny some availability, but the loss of availability presents a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component (e.g., the attacker cannot disrupt existing connections, but can prevent new connections; the attacker can repeatedly exploit a vulnerability that, in each instance of a successful attack, leaks a only small amount of memory, but after repeated exploitation causes a service to become completely unavailable).

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 26 Jun 2026
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 26 Oct 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

ghsa-2vjf-7vmh-8jpp

What to do

AI-suggested

The vulnerability description indicates the issue has been resolved in the Linux kernel by changing the driver code to use the devm interface and a non-legacy workqueue API. Users should apply the official Linux kernel updates containing this fix once available.

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: power: supply: max77705: Free allocated workqueue and fix removal order Use devm interface for allocating workqueue to fix two bugs at the same time: 1. Driver leaks the memory on remove(), because the workqueue is not destroyed. 2. Driver allocates workqueue and then registers interrupt handlers with devm interface. This means that probe error paths will not use a reversed order, but first destroy the workqueue and then, via devm release handlers, free the interrupt. The interrupt handler schedules work on this exact workqueue, thus if interrupt is hit in this short time window - after destroying workqueue, but before devm() frees the interrupt - the schedulled work will lead to use of freed memory. Change is not equivalent in the workqueue itself: use non-legacy API which does not set (__WQ_LEGACY | WQ_MEM_RECLAIM). The workqueue is used to update power supply (power_supply_changed()) status, thus there is no point to run it for memory reclaim. Note that dev_name() is not directly used in second argument to prevent possible unlikely parsing any "%" character in device name as format.

Impact

This vulnerability can cause a use-after-free condition resulting in potential system instability or denial of service due to the kernel accessing freed memory. There is no indication of confidentiality or integrity impact. The CVSS vector indicates local attack vector with low complexity and low privileges required, no user interaction, and an impact limited to availability.

Summary

The Linux kernel max77705 power supply driver had two related bugs: it leaked memory on removal because the workqueue was not destroyed, and it used a devm interface to register interrupt handlers after allocating the workqueue, causing a race condition during removal. Specifically, the interrupt handler could schedule work on a workqueue that had already been destroyed but before the interrupt was freed, leading to use-after-free memory access. The fix involved switching to a non-legacy workqueue API without legacy flags and using the devm interface to properly manage the lifecycle and destruction order of the workqueue and interrupt handlers.

CWE-401Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime (opens in a new tab)
Variant weaknessLikelihood of exploit: Medium
The product does not sufficiently track and release allocated memory after it has been used, making the memory unavailable for reallocation and reuse.
Implementation · Libraries or Frameworks
Choose a language or tool that provides automatic memory management, or makes manual memory management less error-prone.
Architecture and Design
Use an abstraction library to abstract away risky APIs. Not a complete solution.
Architecture and Design · Build and Compilation
Consider using the Boehm-Demers-Weiser garbage collector (bdwgc), which can help avoid leaks.
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 6 Jul 2026, 23:09 UTC

WeaknessesCWE-401

Technical details

References

Community reviews

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