How severe is CVE-2026-53109?

No CVSS score has been assigned to CVE-2026-53109 yet. Review the advisory details and affected package list to assess your exposure.

Which packages are affected by CVE-2026-53109?

CVE-2026-53109 affects the following packages: Kernel (Linux). Ecosystems affected: Linux.

How do I fix CVE-2026-53109?

Update Kernel to 6.18.33 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-53109 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

How do I detect CVE-2026-53109 in my Linux dependencies?

Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for Kernel. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.

How do I mitigate CVE-2026-53109 if there is no patch (or I can't update yet)?

If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.

How does O3 Security protect against CVE-2026-53109?

O3 pinpoints whether CVE-2026-53109 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.

Is CVE-2026-53109 actively exploited in the wild?

No public exploit code has been indexed for CVE-2026-53109 yet. This does not mean the vulnerability cannot be exploited — absence of public exploits does not imply safety. Apply the recommended fix and use O3 Security to monitor your exposure.

What is the EPSS score for CVE-2026-53109?

CVE-2026-53109 has an EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) score of 0.2%, placing it in the 6th percentile of all CVEs. EPSS is maintained by FIRST.org and estimates the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. This score indicates relatively lower exploitation probability, though the CVSS severity should still guide your patching priority.

What type of vulnerability is CVE-2026-53109?

CVE-2026-53109 is classified as Use After Free (CWE-416). This weakness type describe the underlying flaw category, which helps determine the potential impact and the right class of mitigation.

When was CVE-2026-53109 published, and has it been updated?

CVE-2026-53109 was published on June 24, 2026 and was last updated on July 16, 2026. Advisory data evolves as severity scores, affected ranges, and exploit intelligence are revised — always check the latest version of the advisory before acting.

🐧 Linux

CVE-2026-53109

powerpc/pgtable-frag: Fix bad page state in pte_frag_destroy

Published

Jun 24, 2026

Updated

Jul 16, 2026

Affected

1 pkg

Patched

1 / 1

Exploits

None indexed

EPSS Exploitation Probability

via FIRST.org ↗

0.2%probability of exploitation in next 30 days

Lower Risk6th percentile0.00%

EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a daily probability model maintained by FIRST.org. It estimates the likelihood a CVE will be exploited in production environments within the next 30 days, derived from real-world threat intelligence signals.

Blast Radius

1 pkg affected

🐧Kernel

Real-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:

powerpc/pgtable-frag: Fix bad page state in pte_frag_destroy

powerpc uses pt_frag_refcount as a reference counter for tracking it's pte and pmd page table fragments. For PTE table, in case of Hash with 64K pagesize, we have 16 fragments of 4K size in one 64K page.

Patch series [1] "mm: free retracted page table by RCU" added pte_free_defer() to defer the freeing of PTE tables when retract_page_tables() is called for madvise MADV_COLLAPSE on shmem range. [1]: https://lore.kernel.org/all/[email protected]/

pte_free_defer() sets the active flag on the corresponding fragment's folio & calls pte_fragment_free(), which reduces the pt_frag_refcount. When pt_frag_refcount reaches 0 (no active fragment using the folio), it checks if the folio active flag is set, if set, it calls call_rcu to free the folio, it the active flag is unset then it calls pte_free_now().

Now, this can lead to following problem in a corner case...

[ 265.351553][ T183] BUG: Bad page state in process a.out pfn:20d62 [ 265.353555][ T183] page: refcount:0 mapcount:0 mapping:0000000000000000 index:0x0 pfn:0x20d62 [ 265.355457][ T183] flags: 0x3ffff800000100(active|node=0|zone=0|lastcpupid=0x7ffff) [ 265.358719][ T183] raw: 003ffff800000100 0000000000000000 5deadbeef0000122 0000000000000000 [ 265.360177][ T183] raw: 0000000000000000 c0000000119caf58 00000000ffffffff 0000000000000000 [ 265.361438][ T183] page dumped because: PAGE_FLAGS_CHECK_AT_FREE flag(s) set [ 265.362572][ T183] Modules linked in: [ 265.364622][ T183] CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 183 Comm: a.out Not tainted 6.18.0-rc3-00141-g1ddeaaace7ff-dirty #53 VOLUNTARY [ 265.364785][ T183] Hardware name: IBM pSeries (emulated by qemu) POWER10 (architected) 0x801200 0xf000006 of:SLOF,git-ee03ae pSeries [ 265.364908][ T183] Call Trace: [ 265.364955][ T183] [c000000011e6f7c0] [c000000001cfaa18] dump_stack_lvl+0x130/0x148 (unreliable) [ 265.365202][ T183] [c000000011e6f7f0] [c000000000794758] bad_page+0xb4/0x1c8 [ 265.365384][ T183] [c000000011e6f890] [c00000000079c020] __free_frozen_pages+0x838/0xd08 [ 265.365554][ T183] [c000000011e6f980] [c0000000000a70ac] pte_frag_destroy+0x298/0x310 [ 265.365729][ T183] [c000000011e6fa30] [c0000000000aa764] arch_exit_mmap+0x34/0x218 [ 265.365912][ T183] [c000000011e6fa80] [c000000000751698] exit_mmap+0xb8/0x820 [ 265.366080][ T183] [c000000011e6fc30] [c0000000001b1258] __mmput+0x98/0x300 [ 265.366244][ T183] [c000000011e6fc80] [c0000000001c81f8] do_exit+0x470/0x1508 [ 265.366421][ T183] [c000000011e6fd70] [c0000000001c95e4] do_group_exit+0x88/0x148 [ 265.366602][ T183] [c000000011e6fdc0] [c0000000001c96ec] pid_child_should_wake+0x0/0x178 [ 265.366780][ T183] [c000000011e6fdf0] [c00000000003a270] system_call_exception+0x1b0/0x4e0 [ 265.366958][ T183] [c000000011e6fe50] [c00000000000d05c] system_call_vectored_common+0x15c/0x2ec

The bad page state error occurs when such a folio gets freed (with active flag set), from do_exit() path in parallel.

... this can happen when the pte fragment was allocated from this folio, but when all the fragments get freed, the pte_frag_refcount still had some unused fragments. Now, if this process exits, with such folio as it's cached pte_frag in mm->context, then during pte_frag_destroy(), we simply call pagetable_dtor() and pagetable_free(), meaning it doesn't clear the active flag. This, can lead to the above bug. Since we are anyway in do_exit() path, then if the refcount is 0, then I guess it should be ok to simply clear the folio active flag before calling pagetable_dtor() & pagetable_free().

Affected Packages

1 total 1 fixed

Ecosystem	Package	Vulnerable range	Fix
🐧Linux	`Kernel`	≥ 6.6.0&&< 6.18.33	6.18.33

Detection & mitigation playbook

Open-source dependency

Detect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for Kernel. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update Kernel to 6.18.33 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-53109 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 pinpoints whether CVE-2026-53109 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.

Tailored to CVE-2026-53109. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.

Frequently Asked Questions

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: powerpc/pgtable-frag: Fix bad page state in pte_frag_destroy powerpc uses pt_frag_refcount as a reference counter for tracking it's pte and pmd page table fragments. For PTE table, in case of Hash with 64K pagesize, we have 16 fragments of 4K size in one 64K page. Patch series [1] "mm: free retracted page table by RCU" added pte_free_defer() to defer the freeing of PTE tables when retract_page_tables() is called for madvise MADV_COLLAPSE on shmem range. [1]: https://lore.kernel.org/all/7cd843a9-aa80-14f-5eb2-33427363c20@goo

O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

Is CVE-2026-53109 in your dependencies?

O3 detects CVE-2026-53109 across Linux dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.

Scan my dependencies How O3 SCA works