Vulnerabilities

Vulnerability · CVE-2026-74632

mm/huge_memory: fix huge_zero_pfn race

Published Aug 22, 2026 · catalog updated Oct 16, 2026 · Linux Linux

Last checked Nov 7, 2026. A connected source was read within the last 7 days.

Check if you run it

No confirmed exploitation is on record for CVE-2026-74632. EPSS is 0.13%. Act only if a listed version of Linux Linux is installed.

Severity

High7.8

Known exploitation

Not in CISA/VulnCheck KEV

EPSS

0.13%

Remediation

Not established

Affected products

vendor Linux Linux

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/huge_memory: fix huge_zero_pfn race Patch series "mm/huge_memory: fix huge_zero_pfn race", v2. There is a subtle race in the reference-counted huge_zero_folio implementation. The fast path atomic logic fails to account for the fact that the shrinker (which drops the final huge_zero_refcount pin) can overwrite huge_zero_pfn with the ~0UL sentinel value in shrink_huge_zero_folio_scan() after a racing get_huge_zero_folio() installed a valid value there. This results in huge_zero_folio being correctly set but huge_zero_pfn being set incorrectly and thus is_huge_zero_pfn() and consequently is_huge_zero_pmd() will misidentify the huge zero folio as being an ordinary THP folio. This can result in the huge zero folio being split and otherwise treated incorrectly. The solution to this is very subtle as there is an atomic fast path, and thus ordering in weakly ordered architectures has to be treated very carefully. The first commit fixes the issue by introducing a spinlock around huge_zero_[pfn, folio, refcount] write, with careful consideration paid to load/store ordering in the fast path. It is placed first and kept as small as possible so that it can be backported on its own. The second commit is a pure cleanup which reworks the CONFIG_PERSISTENT_HUGE_ZERO_FOLIO logic to better separate the persistent logic from the dynamically allocated one. This patch (of 2): If !CONFIG_PERSISTENT_HUGE_ZERO_FOLIO, the huge_zero_folio is refcounted by huge_zero_refcount and returned by mm_get_huge_zero_folio(). When the caller is done with the huge zero page, its reference count is decremented. Only a shrinker can set the reference count to zero. A race can unfortunately occur between a shrinker decrementing the reference count to zero and a concurrent page fault. This is because shrink_huge_zero_folio_scan() might, if very unlucky, be preempted between setting huge_zero_refcount to zero and writing an invalid value. D