CVE-2026-53059 — Kernel
MEDIUMCVE-2026-53059 is a medium-severity (CVSS 6.3) Out-of-bounds Write vulnerability in Kernel. A fix is available for Kernel — see the affected versions and patch details below.
dm log: fix out-of-bounds write due to region_count overflow
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2026-53059 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 380,526 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Real-World Exposure
KernelReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Linux packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
dm log: fix out-of-bounds write due to region_count overflow
The local variable region_count in create_log_context() is declared as unsigned int (32-bit), but dm_sector_div_up() returns sector_t (64-bit). When a device-mapper target has a sufficiently large ti->len with a small region_size, the division result can exceed UINT_MAX. The truncated value is then used to calculate bitset_size, causing clean_bits, sync_bits, and recovering_bits to be allocated far smaller than needed for the actual number of regions.
Subsequent log operations (log_set_bit, log_clear_bit, log_test_bit) use region indices derived from the full untruncated region space, causing out-of-bounds writes to kernel heap memory allocated by vmalloc.
This can be reproduced by creating a mirror target whose region_count overflows 32 bits:
dmsetup create bigzero --table '0 8589934594 zero'
dmsetup create mymirror --table '0 8589934594 mirror
core 2 2 nosync 2 /dev/mapper/bigzero 0
/dev/mapper/bigzero 0'
The status output confirms the truncation (sync_count=1 instead of 4294967297, because 0x100000001 was truncated to 1):
$ dmsetup status mymirror 0 8589934594 mirror 2 254:1 254:1 1/4294967297 ...
This leads to a kernel crash in core_in_sync:
BUG: scheduling while atomic: (udev-worker)/9150/0x00000000 RIP: 0010:core_in_sync+0x14/0x30 [dm_log] CR2: 0000000000000008 Fixing recursive fault but reboot is needed!
Fix by widening the local region_count to sector_t and adding an explicit overflow check before the value is assigned to lc->region_count.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐧Linux | Kernel | ≥ 2.6.12&&< 5.10.258 | 5.10.258 |
Affected Products
linux kernellinuxDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for Kernel, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update Kernel to 5.10.258 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-53059 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Stop feeding it untrusted input: reject or quarantine files and payloads from unverified sources until you can upgrade, restrict accepted formats to the ones you actually need, and run the parsing or decoding step in a least-privileged sandbox or short-lived worker so a crash or corrupted read cannot reach the rest of the process.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 | kernel-0:6.12.0-211.39.1.el10_2 | RHSA-2026:45114 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10.0 Extended Update Support | kernel-0:6.12.0-55.98.1.el10_0 | RHSA-2026:55445 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Extended Lifecycle Support | kernel-rt-0:3.10.0-1160.159.1.rt56.1311.el7 | RHSA-2026:63189 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Extended Lifecycle Support | kernel-0:3.10.0-1160.159.1.el7 | RHSA-2026:61692 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 | kernel-rt-0:4.18.0-553.147.1.rt7.488.el8_10 | RHSA-2026:45116 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 | kernel-0:4.18.0-553.147.1.el8_10 | RHSA-2026:45115 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 Advanced Mission Critical Update Support | kernel-0:4.18.0-305.200.1.el8_4 | RHSA-2026:47248 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.6 Advanced Mission Critical Update Support | kernel-0:4.18.0-372.206.1.el8_6 | RHSA-2026:53989 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-53059 in your dependencies?
Find it across Linux, including transitive dependencies.