Linux Kernel up to 6.12.109/6.18.50/7.2.4/7.3-rc1 Memory Policy mm/mempolicy.c alloc_pages_bulk_weighted_interleave gfp locking

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.
8.4	$0-$5k	0.44

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability has been found in Linux Kernel up to 6.12.109/6.18.50/7.2.4/7.3-rc1 and classified as very critical. This impacts the function alloc_pages_bulk_weighted_interleave of the file mm/mempolicy.c of the component Memory Policy. The manipulation of the argument gfp leads to locking. This vulnerability is documented as CVE-2026-89986. The attack needs to be performed locally. There is not any exploit available. The affected component should be upgraded.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as very critical, has been found in Linux Kernel up to 6.12.109/6.18.50/7.2.4/7.3-rc1. This issue affects the function alloc_pages_bulk_weighted_interleave of the file mm/mempolicy.c of the component Memory Policy. The manipulation of the argument gfp with an unknown input leads to a locking vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-667. The product does not properly acquire or release a lock on a resource, leading to unexpected resource state changes and behaviors. Impacted is confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/mempolicy: fix sleeping allocation in alloc_pages_bulk_weighted_interleave() syzbot reported a sleeping function called from invalid context splat in bucket_table_alloc(). When rhashtable_insert_slow() rehashes the table under rcu_read_lock(), it calls bucket_table_alloc(..., GFP_ATOMIC | __GFP_NOWARN). If the bucket table allocation uses vmalloc, __vmalloc_node_range_noprof() invokes vm_area_alloc_pages() -> alloc_pages_bulk_mempolicy_noprof() with the passed GFP_ATOMIC flags. If the current task has an MPOL_WEIGHTED_INTERLEAVE mempolicy, alloc_pages_bulk_weighted_interleave() is called and currently hardcodes GFP_KERNEL when allocating the temporary weights array, triggering a might_alloc() splat in atomic/RCU contexts. Pass the gfp flags (masked with GFP_RECLAIM_MASK to strip page-allocator zone modifiers like __GFP_HIGHMEM) received by alloc_pages_bulk_weighted_interleave() to kmalloc() instead of hardcoding GFP_KERNEL. Since the weights buffer is immediately initialized in full, kmalloc() is sufficient.

The advisory is shared at git.kernel.org. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2026-89986 since 09/11/2026. The exploitation is known to be easy. An attack has to be approached locally. Technical details are known, but no exploit is available. The price for an exploit might be around USD $0-$5k at the moment (estimation calculated on 09/16/2026).

Upgrading to version 6.12.110, 6.18.51, 7.2.5 or 7.3-rc2 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch bcb3d0c867ee40dc48e9c085bf328fbc679b6656/0ceda28f371df9e0bbdaa29214f71fe8298f23d8/2943f1f4b7f2816177060eb9f551f2e6d8b629ba/540e583b66d6402bf556fde5e53c817a54c1afe5 is able to eliminate this problem. 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

• 6.12.109
• 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
• 6.18.44
• 6.18.45
• 6.18.46
• 6.18.47
• 6.18.48
• 6.18.49
• 6.18.50
• 7.2.0
• 7.2.1
• 7.2.2
• 7.2.3
• 7.2.4
• 7.3-rc1

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: 8.8
VulDB Meta Temp Score: 8.4

VulDB Base Score: 8.8
VulDB Temp Score: 8.4
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: Locking
CWE: CWE-667
CAPEC: 🔒
ATT&CK: 🔒

Physical: Partially
Local: Yes
Remote: No

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 6.12.110/6.18.51/7.2.5/7.3-rc2
Patch: bcb3d0c867ee40dc48e9c085bf328fbc679b6656/0ceda28f371df9e0bbdaa29214f71fe8298f23d8/2943f1f4b7f2816177060eb9f551f2e6d8b629ba/540e583b66d6402bf556fde5e53c817a54c1afe5

Timelineinfo

09/11/2026 CVE reserved
09/16/2026 +5 days Advisory disclosed
09/16/2026 +0 days VulDB entry created
09/16/2026 +0 days VulDB entry last update

Sourcesinfo

Vendor: kernel.org

Advisory: git.kernel.org
Status: Confirmed

CVE: CVE-2026-89986 (🔒)
GCVE (CVE): GCVE-0-2026-89986
GCVE (VulDB): GCVE-100-405821

Entryinfo

Created: 09/16/2026 15:10
Changes: 09/16/2026 15:10 (61)
Complete: 🔍
Cache ID: 216::103

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Discussion

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