VulnerabilityPublished 26 Jun 2026Updated 6 Jul 2026

CVE-2026-53319: Linux kernel · blk-wbt: remove WARN_ON_ONCE from wbt_init_enable_default()

Source GCVE Database

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 5.5 Medium.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 17:16 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 3% 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-8mp9-p9g8-5rm9

What to do

AI-suggested

A fix has been implemented in the Linux kernel source to replace WARN_ON_ONCE with conditional checks and pr_warn() in wbt_init_enable_default(). Users should update to the fixed kernel version once available. Since this is a code quality and warning suppression fix with no functional impact, no urgent action is required beyond applying the official patch when released. Patch status is not explicitly confirmed here; check the vendor advisory or Linux kernel mailing lists for the specific fixed version.

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: blk-wbt: remove WARN_ON_ONCE from wbt_init_enable_default() wbt_init_enable_default() uses WARN_ON_ONCE to check for failures from wbt_alloc() and wbt_init(). However, both are expected failure paths: - wbt_alloc() can return NULL under memory pressure (-ENOMEM) - wbt_init() can fail with -EBUSY if wbt is already registered syzbot triggers this by injecting memory allocation failures during MTD partition creation via ioctl(BLKPG), causing a spurious warning. wbt_init_enable_default() is a best-effort initialization called from blk_register_queue() with a void return type. Failure simply means the disk operates without writeback throttling, which is harmless. Replace WARN_ON_ONCE with plain if-checks, consistent with how wbt_set_lat() in the same file already handles these failures. Add a pr_warn() for the wbt_init() failure to retain diagnostic information without triggering a full stack trace.

Impact

This vulnerability does not affect confidentiality, integrity, or normal availability of the system. The impact is limited to causing spurious kernel warnings and stack traces, which may confuse diagnostics or clutter logs. The disk continues to operate normally but without writeback throttling, which is a performance feature rather than a security control. There are no known exploits in the wild.

Summary

The Linux kernel vulnerability CVE-2026-53319 concerns the blk-wbt subsystem's wbt_init_enable_default() function, which improperly uses WARN_ON_ONCE to flag expected failure paths from wbt_alloc() and wbt_init(). These failures can occur under memory pressure (-ENOMEM) or if writeback throttling is already registered (-EBUSY). This causes spurious kernel warnings and stack traces triggered by syzbot during memory allocation failure injection. The fix replaces WARN_ON_ONCE with simple if-checks and a pr_warn() call to retain diagnostic information without causing full stack traces. The function is best-effort and void-returning, so failure only disables writeback throttling without functional impact.

CWE-617Reachable Assertion (opens in a new tab)
Base weakness
The product contains an assert() or similar statement that can be triggered by an attacker, which leads to an application exit or other behavior that is more severe than necessary.
Implementation
Make sensitive open/close operation non reachable by directly user-controlled data (e.g. open/close resources)
Implementation · Input Validation
Perform input validation on user data.
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-617

Technical details

References

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