Linux Kernel up to 6.18.35/7.0.12 mm /damon/reclaim damon_reclaim_enabled_store null pointer dereference

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability described as critical has been identified in Linux Kernel up to 6.18.35/7.0.12. The impacted element is the function damon_reclaim_enabled_store of the file /damon/reclaim of the component mm. The manipulation results in null pointer dereference. This vulnerability is reported as CVE-2026-53334. No exploit exists. Upgrading the affected component is recommended.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as critical, was found in Linux Kernel up to 6.18.35/7.0.12. Affected is the function damon_reclaim_enabled_store of the file /damon/reclaim of the component mm. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a null pointer dereference vulnerability. CWE is classifying the issue as CWE-476. A NULL pointer dereference occurs when the application dereferences a pointer that it expects to be valid, but is NULL, typically causing a crash or exit. This is going to have an impact on availability. CVE summarizes:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/damon/reclaim: handle ctx allocation failure Patch series "mm/damon/{reclaim,lru_sort}: handle ctx allocation failures". DAMON_RECLAIM and DAMON_LRU_SORT could dereference NULL pointers if their damon_ctx object allocations fail. The bugs are expected to happen infrequently because the allocations are arguably too small to fail on common setups. But theoretically they are possible and the consequences are bad. Fix those. The issues were discovered [1] by Sashiko. This patch (of 2): DAMON_RECLAIM allocates the damon_ctx object for its kdamond in its init function. damon_reclaim_enabled_store() wrongly assumes the allocation will always succeed once tried. If the damon_ctx allocation was failed, therefore, code execution reaches to damon_commit_ctx() while 'ctx' is NULL. As a result, it dereferences the NULL 'ctx' pointer. Avoid the NULL dereference by returning -ENOMEM if 'ctx' is NULL.

The advisory is shared for download at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability is traded as CVE-2026-53334 since 06/09/2026. There are known technical details, but no exploit is available.

Upgrading to version 6.18.36 or 7.0.13 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch 66bc00ea37fa8ec14be5a3909d067a5967ef234b/635b45ce61de53a9357e28ac97461428cdb650f0/7e2ed8a29427af534bf2cb9b8bc51762b8b6e654 is able to eliminate this problem. The bugfix is ready for download at git.kernel.org. The best possible mitigation is suggested to be upgrading to the latest version.

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Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 6.18.0
• 6.18.1
• 6.18.2
• 6.18.3
• 6.18.4
• 6.18.5
• 6.18.6
• 6.18.7
• 6.18.8
• 6.18.9
• 6.18.10
• 6.18.11
• 6.18.12
• 6.18.13
• 6.18.14
• 6.18.15
• 6.18.16
• 6.18.17
• 6.18.18
• 6.18.19
• 6.18.20
• 6.18.21
• 6.18.22
• 6.18.23
• 6.18.24
• 6.18.25
• 6.18.26
• 6.18.27
• 6.18.28
• 6.18.29
• 6.18.30
• 6.18.31
• 6.18.32
• 6.18.33
• 6.18.34
• 6.18.35
• 7.0.0
• 7.0.1
• 7.0.2
• 7.0.3
• 7.0.4
• 7.0.5
• 7.0.6
• 7.0.7
• 7.0.8
• 7.0.9
• 7.0.10
• 7.0.11
• 7.0.12

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

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