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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2026-53163 json

locking/rtmutex: Skip remove_waiter() when waiter is not enqueued

published 2026-06-25 4 mo ago modified 2026-11-06 2 d ago also EUVD-2026-39254

cvss
5.5
version 3.1, NVD
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:

locking/rtmutex: Skip remove_waiter() when waiter is not enqueued

syzbot triggered the following splat in remove_waiter() via FUTEX_CMP_REQUEUE_PI:

KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000a88-0x0000000000000a8f] class_raw_spinlock_constructor remove_waiter+0x159/0x1200 kernel/locking/rtmutex.c:1561 rt_mutex_start_proxy_lock+0x103/0x120 futex_requeue+0x10e4/0x20d0 __x64_sys_futex+0x34f/0x4d0

task_blocks_on_rt_mutex() does not arm the waiter upon deadlock detection, leaving waiter->task nil, where 3bfdc63936dd ("rtmutex: Use waiter::task instead of current in remove_waiter()") made this fatal.

Furthermore, rt_mutex_start_proxy_lock() should not be calling into remove_waiter() upon a successfully grabbing the rtmutex. 1a1fb985f2e2 ("futex: Handle early deadlock return correctly"), moved the remove_waiter() out of __rt_mutex_start_proxy_lock() (where 'ret' was only ever 0 or < 0) into the wrapper. Tighten this check to account for try_to_take_rt_mutex().

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.1.177, 6.6.144, 6.12.95, 6.18.36, 7.0.13
  • linux Debian 12 6.1.177-1
  • linux Debian 13 6.12.95-1
  • linux Debian 14 7.0.13-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-53163

  • linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-198.208
  • linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-147.147
  • linux Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-31.31
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1117.124
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1067.70
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1012.12
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1118.128
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1071.79

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2026-53163

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-64kb SLES 15 SP5-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP5-ESPOS 5.14.21-150500.55.189.1
  • kernel-syms SLES for SAP 15 SP5, SLES 15 SP5-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS +1 more 5.14.21-150500.55.189.1
  • kernel-source SLES for SAP 15 SP5, SLES 15 SP5-LTSS, SLE Micro 5.5 +2 more 5.14.21-150500.55.189.1
  • kernel-default SLES for SAP 15 SP5, SLES 15 SP5-LTSS, SLE Micro 5.5 +3 more 5.14.21-150500.55.189.1
  • kernel-obs-build SLES for SAP 15 SP5, SLES 15 SP5-LTSS, SLE High Performance Computing 15 SP5-LTSS +1 more 5.14.21-150500.55.189.1
  • kernel-default-base SLES for SAP 15 SP5, SLES 15 SP5-LTSS, SLE Micro 5.5 +2 more 5.14.21-150500.55.189.1.150500.6.87.4
  • kernel-64kb SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.81.1
  • kernel-syms SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.81.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2026:4595-1SUSE-SU-2026:4254-1SUSE-SU-2026:4369-1SUSE-SU-2026:4347-1SUSE-SU-2026:4284-1SUSE-SU-2026:23887-1

  • kernel-rt openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.38.1
  • dtb-aarch64 openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.38.1
  • kernel-64kb openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.38.1
  • kernel-syms openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.38.1
  • kernel-azure openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.38.1
  • kernel-obs-qa openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.38.1
  • kernel-source openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.38.1
  • kernel-default openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.38.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:21910-1

  • kernel Azure Linux 3.0 6.6.144.1-1

azure linux advisories AZL-90620

Azure Linux vulnerability data, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, from https://github.com/microsoft/AzureLinuxVulnerabilityData via OSV, under the MIT licence; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. MIT

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-2026-53163 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: locking/rtmutex: Skip remove_waiter() when waiter is not enqueued

  • 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
    affected: no fix available “Fix deferred”
  • 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
    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

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
3 d ago

Exploit prediction

0.12% 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
NVD 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/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.