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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2026-53197 json

xfrm: iptfs: fix ABBA deadlock in iptfs_destroy_state()

published 2026-06-25 4 mo ago modified 2026-07-06 4 mo ago also EUVD-2026-39288

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:

xfrm: iptfs: fix ABBA deadlock in iptfs_destroy_state()

iptfs_destroy_state() calls hrtimer_cancel() while holding a spinlock that the timer callback also acquires, leading to an ABBA deadlock on SMP systems.

For the output timer (iptfs_timer): - iptfs_destroy_state() holds x->lock, calls hrtimer_cancel() - iptfs_delay_timer() callback takes x->lock

For the drop timer (drop_timer): - iptfs_destroy_state() holds drop_lock, calls hrtimer_cancel() - iptfs_drop_timer() callback takes drop_lock

Both timers use HRTIMER_MODE_REL_SOFT, so their callbacks run in softirq context. When hrtimer_cancel() is called for a soft timer that is currently executing on another CPU, hrtimer_cancel_wait_running() spins on softirq_expiry_lock -- the same lock held by the softirq running the callback. If the callback is blocked waiting for the spinlock held by the caller of hrtimer_cancel(), a circular dependency forms:

CPU 0: holds lock_A -> waits for softirq_expiry_lock CPU 1: holds softirq_expiry_lock -> waits for lock_A

Fix by calling hrtimer_cancel() before acquiring the respective locks. hrtimer_cancel() is safe to call without holding any lock and will wait for any in-progress callback to complete. For the output timer, the lock is still acquired afterwards to drain the packet queue. For the drop timer, the lock/unlock pair is removed entirely since it only existed to serialize with the timer callback, which hrtimer_cancel() already guarantees.

Found by source code audit.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.18.36, 7.0.13, 7.1
  • linux Debian 14 7.0.13-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-53197

  • linux Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-31.31
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1012.12
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1011.11
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1006.7
  • linux-ibm Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1013.13
  • linux-azure Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1014.14
  • linux-raspi Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1019.19
  • linux-riscv Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-31.31.1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2026-53197

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

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-2026-53197 updated

kernel: xfrm: iptfs: fix ABBA deadlock in iptfs_destroy_state()

  • 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

0.12% 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.