Linux Kernel up to 6.12.102/6.18.43/7.1.7/7.2-rc4 mm-slab mm/slab.c alloc_slab_obj_exts stack-based overflow

CVSS Meta Temp Score CVSS is a standardized scoring system to determine possibilities of attacks. The Temp Score considers temporal factors like disclosure, exploit and countermeasures. The unique Meta Score calculates the average score of different sources to provide a normalized scoring system.	Current Exploit Price (≈) Our analysts are monitoring exploit markets and are in contact with vulnerability brokers. The range indicates the observed or calculated exploit price to be seen on exploit markets. A good indicator to understand the monetary effort required for and the popularity of an attack.	CTI Interest Score Our Cyber Threat Intelligence team is monitoring different web sites, mailing lists, exploit markets and social media networks. The CTI Interest Score identifies the interest of attackers and the security community for this specific vulnerability in real-time. A high score indicates an elevated risk to be targeted for this vulnerability.
9.5	$5k-$25k	0.47+

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability classified as very critical was found in Linux Kernel up to 6.12.102/6.18.43/7.1.7/7.2-rc4. The affected element is the function alloc_slab_obj_exts of the file mm/slab.c of the component mm-slab. Executing a manipulation can lead to stack-based overflow. This vulnerability is registered as CVE-2026-74576. It is possible to launch the attack remotely. No exploit is available.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability classified as very critical was found in Linux Kernel up to 6.12.102/6.18.43/7.1.7/7.2-rc4. This vulnerability affects the function alloc_slab_obj_exts of the file mm/slab.c of the component mm-slab. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a stack-based overflow vulnerability. The CWE definition for the vulnerability is CWE-121. A stack-based buffer overflow condition is a condition where the buffer being overwritten is allocated on the stack (i.e., is a local variable or, rarely, a parameter to a function). As an impact it is known to affect confidentiality, integrity, and availability. CVE summarizes:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/slab: prevent unbounded recursion in free path with new kmalloc type Commit 280ea9c3154b ("mm/slab: avoid allocating slabobj_ext array from its own slab") avoided recursive allocation of obj_exts from kmalloc caches of the same size, by bumping the obj_exts array's allocation size whenever the array size equals the size of the object being allocated. However, as reported by Danielle Costantino and Shakeel Butt, even slabs from kmalloc caches of different sizes can form a cycle by allocating obj_exts arrays from each other [1]: What happened: a KMALLOC_NORMAL slab's obj_exts array (used by allocation profiling / memcg accounting) is itself kmalloc()'d from a KMALLOC_NORMAL cache, so the "slab holds another slab's obj_exts array" relation can form cycles. With sizeof(struct slabobj_ext) == 16 and the host's geometry: - kmalloc-512 has 64 objects/slab -> array is 64*16 == 1024 bytes, served from kmalloc-1k; - kmalloc-1k has 32 objects/slab -> array is 32*16 == 512 bytes, served from kmalloc-512. A kmalloc-512 slab and a kmalloc-1k slab therefore hold each other's obj_exts array. Discarding one frees the other's array, which empties and discards that slab, which frees the first's array, and so on: __free_slab() -> free_slab_obj_exts() -> kfree() -> discard_slab() -> __free_slab() recurses along the cycle until the stack is exhausted. With memory allocation profiling, this allows unbounded recursion in the free path and led to a stack overflow on a production host in the Meta fleet [1]: BUG: TASK stack guard page was hit Oops: stack guard page RIP: 0010:kfree+0x8/0x5d0 Call Trace: __free_slab+0x66/0xc0 kfree+0x3f0/0x5d0 ... ( ~125x __free_slab <-> kfree ) ... <kernel driver freeing a resource> do_syscall_64 It is proposed [1] to resolve this issue by always serving the obj_exts array allocation from kmalloc caches (or large kmalloc) of sizes larger than the object size. However, as pointed out by Vlastimil Babka [2], this can waste an excessive amount of memory as slabs from large kmalloc sizes (e.g. kmalloc-8k) generally need obj_exts arrays much smaller than the object size. Therefore, rather than bumping the size, let us take a different approach; disallow formation of cycles between kmalloc types when allocating obj_exts arrays. Currently, all obj_exts arrays are served from normal kmalloc caches. Cycles cannot be created if obj_exts arrays of normal kmalloc caches are served from a special kmalloc type that can never have obj_exts arrays. To achieve this, create a new kmalloc type called KMALLOC_NO_OBJ_EXT. KMALLOC_NO_OBJ_EXT caches are created with SLAB_NO_OBJ_EXT flag when either 1) memory allocation profiling is not permanently disabled, or 2) kmalloc types with a priority higher than KMALLOC_CGROUP are aliased with KMALLOC_NORMAL. Sheaf bootstrapping for KMALLOC_NO_OBJ_EXT caches now must be deferred because allocation of a barn can trigger obj_exts array allocation of normal kmalloc caches when the KMALLOC_NO_OBJ_EXT cache for that size is not ready yet. For simplicity, perform bootstrapping of sheaves for all kmalloc caches later. Introduce a new slab alloc flag, SLAB_ALLOC_NO_OBJ_EXT, to prevent allocation of obj_exts arrays, and let kmalloc_slab() override the type to KMALLOC_NO_OBJ_EXT when specified. Note that kmalloc_type() remains unchanged because kmalloc_flags() bypasses the kmalloc fastpath. Do not pass SLAB_ALLOC_NO_RECURSE to kmalloc_flags() in alloc_slab_obj_exts() and instead use SLAB_ALLOC_NO_OBJ_EXT only when the objects are allocated from normal kmalloc caches. While this prevents unbounded recursive allocation of obj_exts, it allows KMALLOC_NO_OBJ_EXT caches to have sheaves. Since sheaf allocations specify SLAB_ALLOC_NO_RECURSE that prevents allocation of both sheaves and obj_exts arrays, the recursion depth is bounded. obj_exts arrays for non- ---truncated---

The advisory is shared for download at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability was named CVE-2026-74576 since 08/15/2026. The exploitation appears to be easy. The attack can be initiated remotely. There are known technical details, but no exploit is available. The current price for an exploit might be approx. USD $5k-$25k (estimation calculated on 08/15/2026).

Upgrading to version 6.12.103, 6.18.44, 7.1.8 or 7.2-rc5 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch 3e71bfbdd3fd81ee9fefd867fdb2be62bade4140/d01e88d421a6d07f35235600a43fbd0e551cf292/ebefca49e4c69df24ba9307bfe0806230301d5c6/d9e6a7623938968e3752b67e37eaff097e559a54 is able to eliminate this problem.

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Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 6.12.102
• 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
• 6.18.36
• 6.18.37
• 6.18.38
• 6.18.39
• 6.18.40
• 6.18.41
• 6.18.42
• 6.18.43
• 7.1.0
• 7.1.1
• 7.1.2
• 7.1.3
• 7.1.4
• 7.1.5
• 7.1.6
• 7.1.7
• 7.2-rc1
• 7.2-rc2
• 7.2-rc3
• 7.2-rc4

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

CPE 2.3info

• 🔒
• 🔒
• 🔒

CPE 2.2info

• 🔒
• 🔒
• 🔒

CVSSv4info

VulDB Vector: 🔒
VulDB Reliability: 🔍

CVSSv3info

VulDB Meta Base Score: 9.9
VulDB Meta Temp Score: 9.5

VulDB Base Score: 9.9
VulDB Temp Score: 9.5
VulDB Vector: 🔒
VulDB Reliability: 🔍

CVSSv2info

AV	AC	Au	C	I	A
💳	💳	💳	💳	💳	💳
💳	💳	💳	💳	💳	💳
💳	💳	💳	💳	💳	💳

Vector	Complexity	Authentication	Confidentiality	Integrity	Availability
Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock
Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock
Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock

VulDB Base Score: 🔒
VulDB Temp Score: 🔒
VulDB Reliability: 🔍

Exploitinginfo

Class: Stack-based overflow
CWE: CWE-121 / CWE-119
CAPEC: 🔒
ATT&CK: 🔒

Physical: No
Local: No
Remote: Yes

Availability: 🔒
Status: Not defined
Price Prediction: 🔍
Current Price Estimation: 🔒

0-Day	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock
Today	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock

Threat Intelligenceinfo

Interest: 🔍
Active Actors: 🔍
Active APT Groups: 🔍

Countermeasuresinfo

Recommended: Upgrade
Status: 🔍

0-Day Time: 🔒

Upgrade: Kernel 6.12.103/6.18.44/7.1.8/7.2-rc5
Patch: 3e71bfbdd3fd81ee9fefd867fdb2be62bade4140/d01e88d421a6d07f35235600a43fbd0e551cf292/ebefca49e4c69df24ba9307bfe0806230301d5c6/d9e6a7623938968e3752b67e37eaff097e559a54

Timelineinfo

08/15/2026 Advisory disclosed
08/15/2026 +0 days CVE reserved
08/15/2026 +0 days VulDB entry created
08/15/2026 +0 days VulDB entry last update

Sourcesinfo

Vendor: kernel.org

Advisory: git.kernel.org
Status: Confirmed

CVE: CVE-2026-74576 (🔒)
GCVE (CVE): GCVE-0-2026-74576
GCVE (VulDB): GCVE-100-390880

Entryinfo

Created: 08/15/2026 15:56
Changes: 08/15/2026 15:56 (60)
Complete: 🔍
Cache ID: 216::103

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