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Fencer Vulns
no cvss —

CVE-2026-89752 json

mm: memcg: stop reclaim when a limit update is superseded

published 2026-09-11 58 d ago modified 2026-10-19 20 d ago also EUVD-2026-76664

cvss
—
not scored
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 7%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

mm: memcg: stop reclaim when a limit update is superseded

kernfs serializes file operations only per open file, so separate open files can update the same memory.high or memory.max file concurrently. Both handlers store the new limit before synchronous reclaim, but continue to use the writer's local target in the reclaim loop. If another writer raises or removes the limit, the first writer can continue reclaiming toward a stale target.

For memory.max, this can leave the writer looping indefinitely once reclaim retries are exhausted. The OOM path sees sufficient margin under the current limit and returns true without killing, while the writer still compares usage against its stale target and records another OOM event.

Check the current limit at the start of each reclaim iteration and stop if it no longer matches the writer's target.

Reproducer:

Populate a cgroup with anonymous memory and disable swapping. Lower memory.max from one open file, then restore it to "max" through another open file after the new limit becomes visible.

Without the patch, the first writer remains blocked and repeatedly increments the OOM event counter. With the patch, it returns normally.

This was not motivated by a reported production workload. We found it through automated randomized testing for our cgroup observability work and reduced it to the reproducer above.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 4.5, 4.6, 5.10.270, 5.15.221, 6.1.188, 6.6.157, 6.12.109, 6.18.50, 7.2.4, 7.3
  • linux Debian 12 6.1.190-1
  • linux Debian 13 6.12.111-1
  • linux Debian 14 7.2.6-1
  • linux-6.12 Debian 12 6.12.111-1~deb12u1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-89752

  • linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-202.212
  • linux Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-42.42
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1119.126
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1016.17
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1120.130
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1016.18
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1115.121
  • linux-ibm Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1113.117

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2026-89752

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-syms SLES LTSS Extended Security 12 SP5, SLES 12 SP5-LTSS 4.12.14-122.333.2
  • kernel-source SLES LTSS Extended Security 12 SP5, SLES 12 SP5-LTSS 4.12.14-122.333.2
  • kernel-default SLES LTSS Extended Security 12 SP5, SLES 12 SP5-LTSS, SLE Live Patching 12 SP5 4.12.14-122.333.2
  • kgraft-patch-SLE12-SP5_Update_88 SLE Live Patching 12 SP5 1-8.3.3

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2026:4687-1

  • kernel-source openSUSE Tumbleweed 7.2.7-1.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:11880-1

  • kernel Azure Linux 3.0 6.6.157.1-1

azure linux advisories AZL-100536

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-2026-89752 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: mm: memcg: stop reclaim when a limit update is superseded

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • 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 Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-8, openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-9 Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 5 openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-9
    affected: workaround, no fix available “Fix deferred”
  • 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

Exploit prediction

0.18% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 7% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Technology feeds

References

Sources

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