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Fencer Vulns
high 7.8

CVE-2026-45866 json

serial: caif: fix use-after-free in caif_serial ldisc_close()

published 2026-05-27 5 mo ago modified 2026-06-25 4 mo ago also EUVD-2026-32332

cvss
7.8
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 5%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

serial: caif: fix use-after-free in caif_serial ldisc_close()

There is a use-after-free bug in caif_serial where handle_tx() may access ser->tty after the tty has been freed.

The race condition occurs between ldisc_close() and packet transmission:

CPU 0 (close) CPU 1 (xmit) ------------- ------------ ldisc_close() tty_kref_put(ser->tty) [tty may be freed here] <-- race window --> caif_xmit() handle_tx() tty = ser->tty // dangling ptr tty->ops->write() // UAF! schedule_work() ser_release() unregister_netdevice()

The root cause is that tty_kref_put() is called in ldisc_close() while the network device is still active and can receive packets.

Since ser and tty have a 1:1 binding relationship with consistent lifecycles (ser is allocated in ldisc_open and freed in ser_release via unregister_netdevice, and each ser binds exactly one tty), we can safely defer the tty reference release to ser_release() where the network device is unregistered.

Fix this by moving tty_kref_put() from ldisc_close() to ser_release(), after unregister_netdevice(). This ensures the tty reference is held as long as the network device exists, preventing the UAF.

Note: We save ser->tty before unregister_netdevice() because ser is embedded in netdev's private data and will be freed along with netdev (needs_free_netdev = true).

How to reproduce: Add mdelay(500) at the beginning of ldisc_close() to widen the race window, then run the reproducer program [1].

Note: There is a separate deadloop issue in handle_tx() when using PORT_UNKNOWN serial ports (e.g., /dev/ttyS3 in QEMU without proper serial backend). This deadloop exists even without this patch, and is likely caused by inconsistency between uart_write_room() and uart_write() in serial core. It has been addressed in a separate patch [2].

KASAN report:

================================================================== BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in handle_tx+0x5d1/0x620 Read of size 1 at addr ffff8881131e1490 by task caif_uaf_trigge/9929

Call Trace: <TASK> dump_stack_lvl+0x10e/0x1f0 print_report+0xd0/0x630 kasan_report+0xe4/0x120 handle_tx+0x5d1/0x620 dev_hard_start_xmit+0x9d/0x6c0 __dev_queue_xmit+0x6e2/0x4410 packet_xmit+0x243/0x360 packet_sendmsg+0x26cf/0x5500 __sys_sendto+0x4a3/0x520 __x64_sys_sendto+0xe0/0x1c0 do_syscall_64+0xc9/0xf80 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f RIP: 0033:0x7f615df2c0d7

Allocated by task 9930:

Freed by task 64:

Last potentially related work creation:

The buggy address belongs to the object at ffff8881131e1000 which belongs to the cache kmalloc-cg-2k of size 2048 The buggy address is located 1168 bytes inside of freed 2048-byte region [ffff8881131e1000, ffff8881131e1800)

The buggy address belongs to the physical page: page_owner tracks the page as allocated page last free pid 9778 tgid 9778 stack trace:

Memory state around the buggy address: ffff8881131e1380: fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb ffff8881131e1400: fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb >ffff8881131e1480: fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb ^ ffff8881131e1500: fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb ffff8881131e1580: fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb fb ================================================================== [1]: https://gist.github.com/mrpre/f683f244544f7b11e7fa87df9e6c2eeb [2]: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-serial/20260204074327.226165-1-jiayuan.chen@linux.dev/T/#u

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 5.10.252, 5.15.202, 6.1.165, 6.6.128, 6.12.75, 6.18.14, 6.19.4, 7.0
  • linux Debian 12 6.1.170-1
  • linux Debian 13 6.12.85-1
  • linux Debian 14 6.18.14-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-45866

  • linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-186.196
  • linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-134.134
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1112.119
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1060.63
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1112.122
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1063.69
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1108.114
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1058.64

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2026-45866

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • kernel-default SLES 16.0, SLE High Availability Extension 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2 +1 more 6.12.0-160000.37.1
  • kernel-rt Linux Micro 6.2 6.12.0-160000.37.1
  • kernel-64kb SLES 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.37.1
  • kernel-source SLES 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.37.1
  • kernel-default-base SLES 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.37.1.160000.2.19
  • kernel-syms SLES 16.0, Linux Micro Extras 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.37.1
  • kernel-azure SLES 16.0, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.37.1
  • kernel-obs-qa SLES 16.0, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.37.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2026:23237-1SUSE-SU-2026:23068-1SUSE-SU-2026:23221-1SUSE-SU-2026:23231-1SUSE-SU-2026:23066-1

  • kernel-rt openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.37.1
  • dtb-aarch64 openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.37.1
  • kernel-64kb openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.37.1
  • kernel-syms openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.37.1
  • kernel-azure openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.37.1
  • kernel-obs-qa openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.37.1
  • kernel-source openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.37.1
  • kernel-default openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.37.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:21555-1openSUSE-SU-2026:11175-1

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-2026-45866 updated

kernel: serial: caif: fix use-after-free in caif_serial ldisc_close()

  • 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

0.16% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 5% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 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.