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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2026-53261 json

devlink: Release nested relation on devlink free

published 2026-06-25 4 mo ago modified 2026-11-06 2 d ago also EUVD-2026-39212

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 1%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

devlink: Release nested relation on devlink free

devlink relation state is normally released from devl_unregister(), which calls devlink_rel_put(). This misses devlink instances that get a nested relation before registration and then fail probe before devl_register() is reached.

That flow can happen for SFs. The child devlink gets linked to its parent before registration, then a later probe error calls devlink_free() directly. Since the instance was never registered, devl_unregister() is not called and devlink->rel is leaked.

Release any pending relation from devlink_free() as well. The registered path is unchanged because devl_unregister() already clears devlink->rel before devlink_free() runs.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.12.94, 6.18.36, 7.0.13, 7.1
  • linux Debian 13 6.12.94-1
  • linux Debian 14 7.0.13-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-53261

  • linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-146.146
  • linux Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-31.31
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1066.69
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1012.12
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1070.78
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1011.11
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1065.73
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1006.7

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2026-53261

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-2026-53261 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: devlink: Release nested relation on devlink free

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +82 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 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 kernel-rt, kernel-rt-selftests-internal
    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
2 d ago

Exploit prediction

0.11% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 1% 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
  • CWE-401 Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime
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.