Linux Kernel Vulnerability Affecting ARM64 Page Table Management

CVE-2026-53342

What is CVE-2026-53342?

A vulnerability has been identified in the Linux kernel affecting ARM64 systems, specifically linked to page table management. The issue arises from the improper handling of page table destructor calls when freeing hot-removed page tables, leading to potential instability. This flaw can result in warnings during memory operations, as observed with DEBUG_VM enabled on affected kernel versions. The situation can cause memory allocation issues, potentially leaking the page table lock (PTL) structure and leading to incorrect statistics for page tables. To mitigate the problem, developers need to ensure that the destructor function is correctly invoked prior to freeing the affected pages.

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