CVE-2026-68178

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.

Affected products

Kernel, Linux, Linux-6.12, Linux-Allwinner-5.19, Linux-Aws, Linux-Aws-5.0, Linux-Aws-5.11, Linux-Aws-5.13

CVSS 3.1

7.8 HIGH

EPSS

0.2% (6th percentile)

NVD status

Received

Published

2026-08-10

No exploit for CVE-2026-68178 has been indexed yet. Our index is built from live traffic and upstream syncs, so this page can only say what it knows — not that no exploit exists.