CVE-2026-46289
Linux Kernel 6.3 – 6.6.140
Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:HSummary
CVE-2026-46289 is a critical-severity Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime (CWE-401) vulnerability in Linux Linux Kernel. Its CVSS base score is 9.8 (Critical).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Endpoint Denial of Service (T1499); ranked at the 38th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) and SA-15 (Development Process, Standards, and Tools) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2026-35155
Vulnerability Data
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: lib/scatterlist: fix length calculations in extract_kvec_to_sg Patch series "Fix bugs in extract_iter_to_sg()", v3. Fix bugs in the kvec and user variants of extract_iter_to_sg. This series is growing due to useful…
more
remarks made by sashiko.dev. The main bugs are: - The length for an sglist entry when extracting from a kvec can exceed the number of bytes in the page. This is obviously not intended. - When extracting a user buffer the sglist is temporarily used as a scratch buffer for extracted page pointers. If the sglist already contains some elements this scratch buffer could overlap with existing entries in the sglist. The series adds test cases to the kunit_iov_iter test that demonstrate all of these bugs. Additionally, there is a memory leak fix for the test itself. The bugs were orignally introduced into kernel v6.3 where the function lived in fs/netfs/iterator.c. It was later moved to lib/scatterlist.c in v6.5. Thus the actual fix is only marked for backports to v6.5+. This patch (of 5): When extracting from a kvec to a scatterlist, do not cross page boundaries. The required length was already calculated but not used as intended. Adjust the copied length if the loop runs out of sglist entries without extracting everything. While there, return immediately from extract_iter_to_sg if there are no sglist entries at all. A subsequent commit will add kunit test cases that demonstrate that the patch is necessary.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Developer testing and evaluation (static analysis, fuzzing, or runtime leak detection) directly finds missing deallocation.
Requiring documented development standards and tools can mandate memory-management disciplines that avoid leaks at introduction.
Engineering principles applied during development can require explicit resource-release patterns that stop memory leaks from being coded.
Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Secure SDLC practices directly enforce proper memory allocation/deallocation via coding standards, reviews, and tooling.
Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Security testing in development can detect unreleased memory, providing partial coverage of the weakness.
Secure development life cycle mandates memory-management practices that reduce missing-release defects.
Application security requirements can specify explicit memory-release rules, partially mitigating the weakness.
Secure system architecture and engineering principles include resource-management guidelines that address memory leaks.
Secure coding standards directly require proper allocation/deallocation, covering most of this weakness.
Capacity management may detect memory exhaustion symptoms but does not prevent the coding flaw.