CVE-2026-68178EPSS p6.4%
CVE-2026-68178CVE-2026-68178
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
misc: nsm: pin the module while the device is open
misc_open() installs a misc driver's file operations with fops_get(),
which pins file_operations::owner before replacing the file's f_op. The
NSM misc device leaves nsm_dev_fops.owner unset, so opening /dev/nsm does
not take a module reference on the nsm driver.
If the driver is built as a module, an open file descriptor can therefore
survive rmmod of the module that provides its ioctl callbacks. A later
ioctl through that descriptor can call into unloaded module text.
Set nsm_dev_fops.owner to THIS_MODULE so the misc core holds the module
while any /dev/nsm file descriptor is open, matching the lifetime
expectation for the installed file operations.
Scoring
| CVSS | 7.8 () |
| Vector | CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H |
| EPSS | 0.18% probability of exploitation · percentile 6.4% · 2026-10-06T12:00:23Z |
| Last modified | 2026-08-17 |