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Fencer Vulns
high 7.8

CVE-2026-43438 json

sched_ext: Remove redundant css_put() in scx_cgroup_init()

published 2026-05-08 6 mo ago modified 2026-08-05 3 mo ago also EUVD-2026-28744

cvss
7.8
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.1%
EPSS 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 2%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

sched_ext: Remove redundant css_put() in scx_cgroup_init()

The iterator css_for_each_descendant_pre() walks the cgroup hierarchy under cgroup_lock(). It does not increment the reference counts on yielded css structs.

According to the cgroup documentation, css_put() should only be used to release a reference obtained via css_get() or css_tryget_online(). Since the iterator does not use either of these to acquire a reference, calling css_put() in the error path of scx_cgroup_init() causes a refcount underflow.

Remove the unbalanced css_put() to prevent a potential Use-After-Free (UAF) vulnerability.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.12.78, 6.18.19, 6.19.9, 7.0
  • linux Debian 13 6.12.85-1
  • linux Debian 14 6.19.10-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-43438

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2026-43438 updated

kernel: sched_ext: Remove redundant css_put() in scx_cgroup_init()

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

0.13% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 2% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Weakness
Technology feeds

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.