CVE-2026-53180 — Kernel
HIGHCVE-2026-53180 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.5) CWE-667 vulnerability in Kernel. A fix is available for Kernel — see the affected versions and patch details below.
timers/migration: Fix livelock in tmigr_handle_remote_up()
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2026-53180 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 385,386 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:
timers/migration: Fix livelock in tmigr_handle_remote_up()
tmigr_handle_remote_cpu() skips timer_expire_remote() when cpu == smp_processor_id(), assuming the local softirq path already handled this CPU's timers.
This assumption is wrong because jiffies can advance after the handling of the CPU's global timers in run_timer_base(BASE_GLOBAL) and before tmigr_handle_remote() evaluates the expiry times.
As a consequence a timer which expires after the CPU local timer wheel advanced and becomes expired in the remote handling is ignored and the callback is never invoked and removed from the timer wheel.
What's worse is that fetch_next_timer_interrupt_remote() keeps reporting it as expired, and the event is re-queued with expires == now on each iteration. The goto-again loop spins indefinitely.
Fix this by calling timer_expire_remote() unconditionally. That's minimal overhead for the common case as __run_timer_base() returns immediately if there is nothing to expire in the local wheel.
[ tglx: Amend change log and add a comment ]
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐧Linux | Kernel | ≥ 6.9.0&&< 6.12.94 | 6.12.94 |
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 6.12.94 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-53180 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.
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-53180 in your dependencies?
Find it across Linux, including transitive dependencies.