How severe is CVE-2026-74481?

No CVSS score has been assigned to CVE-2026-74481 yet. Review the advisory details and affected package list to assess your exposure.

Which packages are affected by CVE-2026-74481?

CVE-2026-74481 affects the following packages: Kernel (Linux). Ecosystems affected: Linux.

How do I fix CVE-2026-74481?

Update Kernel to 6.6.151 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-74481 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.

How do I detect CVE-2026-74481 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-2026-74481 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-2026-74481?

O3 pinpoints whether CVE-2026-74481 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-2026-74481 actively exploited in the wild?

No public exploit code has been indexed for CVE-2026-74481 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.

When was CVE-2026-74481 published, and has it been updated?

CVE-2026-74481 was published on August 15, 2026 and was last updated on August 17, 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

Not in CISA KEV

CVE-2026-74481

CVE-2026-74481 is a security vulnerability in Kernel. O3 Security confirms whether CVE-2026-74481 is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.

mm/page_reporting: use system_freezable_wq to fix UAF during suspend

Published

Aug 15, 2026

Updated

Aug 17, 2026

Affected

1 pkg

Patched

1 / 1

Exploits

None indexed

Exploitation data as of Aug 17, 2026 · OSV.dev, NVD, FIRST.org (EPSS)

Real-World Exposure

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:

mm/page_reporting: use system_freezable_wq to fix UAF during suspend

During PM freeze (e.g. S3 suspend or S4 hibernation), device drivers like virtio_balloon reset their underlying virtio devices and delete their virtqueues via vdev->config->del_vqs().

However, page reporting work (page_reporting_process) was scheduled on the global system_wq. Because system_wq lacks the WQ_FREEZABLE flag, the PM freezer skips it, leaving page_reporting_process active during suspend.

If pages are freed into the buddy allocator while suspending (for example, when core MM invokes the balloon shrinker during S4 hibernation image saving), page reporting triggers virtballoon_free_page_report() on deleted virtqueues, resulting in a Use-After-Free / General Protection Fault:

[  196.795226] general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0xaa1436fe70dae6df: 0000 [#1] SMP NOPTI
[  196.825967] Workqueue: events page_reporting_process
[  196.831038] RIP: 0010:virtqueue_add_split+0x233/0x4c0 [virtio_ring]
[  196.927073] virtballoon_free_page_report+0x3a/0xe0 [virtio_balloon]
[  196.946943] page_reporting_process+0x370/0x4f0

Fix this by switching page reporting work to system_freezable_wq. This ensures that the PM freezer pauses page_reporting_process before device drivers destroy their reporting virtqueues. Because the reporting worker is frozen, memory reclamation/freeing (e.g. via shrinker execution) can safely return pages to MM during freeze without triggering unfrozen reporting work on deleted virtqueues.

This aligns with the driver's existing design. The comment in virtballoon_freeze() states: /* * The workqueue is already frozen by the PM core before this * function is called. */

Testing: I have verified these fixes using Google’s virtualization infrastructure by running continuous suspend/resume iterations (40+ cycles) while churning memory using stress-ng (stress-ng --vm 4 --vm-bytes 60% --timeout 1) to constantly create free pages for the buddy allocator. We also set the page_reporting_order parameter to 0 to make the page reporting worker highly sensitive, forcing it to pick up any 4K free pages. This confirmed that the UAF crashes are no longer reproducible.

Affected Packages

1 total 1 fixed

Ecosystem	Package	Vulnerable range	Fix
🐧Linux	`Kernel`	≥ 5.7.0&&< 6.6.151	6.6.151

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 6.6.151 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-74481 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-2026-74481 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-2026-74481. 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: mm/page_reporting: use system_freezable_wq to fix UAF during suspend During PM freeze (e.g. S3 suspend or S4 hibernation), device drivers like virtio_balloon reset their underlying virtio devices and delete their virtqueues via vdev->config->del_vqs(). However, page reporting work (page_reporting_process) was scheduled on the global system_wq. Because system_wq lacks the WQ_FREEZABLE flag, the PM freezer skips it, leaving page_reporting_process active during suspend. If pages are freed into the buddy allocator while susp

O3 Security · Impact-Aware SCA

Is CVE-2026-74481 in your dependencies?

O3 detects CVE-2026-74481 across Linux dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.

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