HighCVE-2026-43303

    Linux Kernel: Use-After-Free (CVE-2026-43303)

    Published Last modified Sources: Siemens ProductCERT, Debian LTS, SUSE, Ubuntu, Debian, Red Hat, BSI, CVE.org, Msrc Update Guide, EUVD

    What is affected, what to do

    A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's memory management subsystem. When pages are freed, the page->private field is not properly cleared.

    Update Linux Kernel to version 6.1.176, Linux Kernel to version 6.6.143, Linux Kernel to version 6.12.93.

    Affected
    • Linux Kernel lt 5.18..6.1.176
    • Linux Kernel lt 6.2..6.6.143
    • Linux Kernel lt 6.7..6.12.93
    • Linux Kernel lt 6.13..6.18.16
    • Linux Kernel lt 6.19..6.19.6
    • Linux Kernel lt 6.20..7.0
    Fixed in
    • Linux Kernel 6.1.176
    • Linux Kernel 6.6.143
    • Linux Kernel 6.12.93
    • Linux Kernel 6.18.16
    • Linux Kernel 6.19.6
    • Linux Kernel 7.0

    Not sure whether and how you are affected? Ask a question about this vulnerability

    Metrics

    7.8

    Priority

    XIEM Effective CVSS: highest available CVSS rating from NVD and vendor data.

    Source: Vendor (CNA), CVSS v3

    7.8

    CVSS v3

    Severity High on the scale from 0 to 10.

    Source: Siemens ProductCERT, Debian LTS, SUSE, Ubuntu, Debian, Red Hat, BSI, CVE.org, Msrc Update Guide, EUVD

    0.2 %

    EPSS score

    Low — model estimates < 1% exploitation likelihood.

    Source: FIRST EPSS, percentile 6.6

    Show all metrics
    Severity
    High
    Priority (0–325)

    The priority score is a consolidated metric that condenses several individual signals into a single, action-guiding ranking: technical severity (CVSS), exploitation likelihood (EPSS), known-exploited status (KEV) and the context of the affected asset. The aim is to answer the only truly important question in vulnerability management: what first?

    Read in glossary
    56.52 Methodology
    Exploit maturity

    An exploit is code or a technique that specifically uses a concrete vulnerability to force unintended behaviour — such as executing code or escalating privileges. It is the tool that turns a theoretical flaw into a practical attack.

    Read in glossary
    no public PoC known
    XIEM Effective CVSS

    XIEM® is the tiered managed-security operating model from NEOSEC and a registered trademark of NEOSEC GmbH. It extends classic SIEM — the central collection, normalisation and correlation of security-relevant events — with endpoint forensics, network visibility and deception technology, and consolidates them into three building tiers: Sentry, Orchestrate and Command.

    Read in glossary
    7.8 Methodology
    CVSS v3

    CVSS is the globally established, open standard for assessing the technical severity of a vulnerability on a scale from 0 to 10. It describes how easily a flaw can be exploited and what damage it can cause — but not how likely its actual exploitation is. CVSS and the complementary EPSS deliberately answer different questions.

    Read in glossary
    7.8
    EPSS score

    The EPSS score is the absolute model output for an individual vulnerability: the estimated probability of real-world exploitation within the next 30 days, expressed as a value between 0 and 1 (i.e. 0 % to 100 %). A score of 0.42 means „the model estimates a 42 % chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days“.

    Read in glossary
    0.2 %
    Low — model estimates < 1% exploitation likelihood.
    EPSS percentile

    The EPSS percentile is the relative position of a vulnerability within all EPSS-scored CVEs, expressed as a value between 0 and 1. A percentile of 0.90 means „this CVE has a higher EPSS score than 90 % of all other scored CVEs“. Unlike the EPSS score, it is not a probability — but a positioning within a ranking.

    Read in glossary
    6.6
    Low — this CVE sits in the lower 10% of all CVEs scored today.
    KEV status

    The KEV catalogue is a list maintained by the US authority CISA of vulnerabilities for which active exploitation in the wild has been confirmed. It answers not the question „how severe?“ but „is it already being attacked?“ — thereby sharply prioritising patching.

    Read in glossary
    —
    Published
    CISA assessment (SSVC)
    Exploitation: none known · not automatable · Technical impact: total
    Source: CISA Vulnrichment, as of 16 October 2026
    CWE

    CWE is a catalogue of typical weakness types in software and hardware — such as flawed input validation, unsafe memory handling or poor authentication. Where a CVE names a concrete vulnerability in a concrete product, a CWE describes the underlying class of defect.

    Read in glossary
    CWE-457

    Detection rules

    No NEOSEC detection rule is available for this vulnerability yet.

    Classification under NIS2 and CRA

    Rule-based classification from exploitation status and severity. It does not replace a case-by-case assessment.

    NIS2

    NIS2 is EU Directive (EU) 2022/2555 to raise the level of cybersecurity across the Union. It substantially broadens obligations compared with the first NIS directive: more sectors, mandatory risk management, staged reporting duties and personal accountability of senior management.

    Read in glossary
    High technical severity: assess and remediate the vulnerability in vulnerability handling under Art. 21(2)(e) NIS2 and document the decision.
    CRA

    The CRA is EU Regulation (EU) 2024/2847 setting horizontal cybersecurity requirements for „products with digital elements“ — from industrial controllers and software to connected consumer devices. For the first time manufacturers must ensure security across the entire product lifecycle, handle vulnerabilities and provide security updates.

    Read in glossary
    From 11.12.2027, Annex I Part II CRA requires manufacturers of affected products with digital elements to handle vulnerabilities without delay and provide security updates.
    ISO/IEC 27001

    ISO/IEC 27001 is the internationally leading standard for an information security management system (ISMS). It describes a risk-based, process-oriented framework to systematically plan, implement, review and improve information security.

    Read in glossary
    Control A.8.8, management of technical vulnerabilities: assess relevance to your systems, plan remediation and keep evidence.

    Description

    A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's memory management subsystem. When pages are freed, the page->private field is not properly cleared. If these pages are later reallocated as high-order pages and split, the tail pages can retain stale page->private values. This can lead to a use-after-free vulnerability in the swap subsystem, where incorrect assumptions about the page->private value can cause the system to crash.

    Source: siemens_advisory, Debian LTS Advisories, suse_csaf, Ubuntu Security Notices, Debian Security Advisories, redhat_csaf, BSI WID Portal, BSI CSAF, NVD (NIST), CVE.org (MITRE), cvelistv5, Microsoft Security Update Guide, ENISA EUVD

    Affected products

    The following versions are affected. Older releases of the same product line are also vulnerable unless stated otherwise.

    Affected products
    Affected versionsFixed in
    LinuxLinux
    • 5.18 – < 6.1.176
    • 6.7 – < 6.12.93
    • 6.19 – < 6.19.6
    • 6.20 – < 7.0
    • 6.13 – < 6.18.16
    • 6.2 – < 6.6.143
    • 6.1.176
    • 6.12.93
    • 6.19.6
    • 7.0
    • 6.18.16
    • 6.6.143
    IBMDataPower Gateway
    • < 11.0.0.3
    • < 10.6.0.11
    • < 10.5.0.23
    • 11.0.0.3
    • 10.6.0.11
    • 10.5.0.23
    MicrosoftAzure Linux
    • azl3
    • —
    SiemensSIMATIC S7
    • 1500 TM MFP V1.1.1 GNU/Linux subsystem
    • —

    Vendors and products

    Affected operating systems

    Affected operating systems
    Linuxdebianlinuxbookworm
    Linuxdebianlinuxtrixie
    Linuxdebianlinux-6.1bullseye
    Linuxlinuxlinux_kernel5.18
    Linuxlinuxlinux_kernel—

    Weakness classes (CWE)

    • CWE-457Use of Uninitialized Variable

      Variant

      The code uses a variable that has not been initialized, leading to unpredictable or unintended results.

      Entry at MITRE CWE-457

    References & sources

    Changes to this CVE

    Who changed this CVE and when: NVD (analysis, affected products, CVSS), the CVE publisher (CNA) and additional providers such as CISA (ADP).

    1. Record modifiedCISA ADP

      Weakness type: CWE-457

      Show the original change
      Individual changes of this event as published by NVD
      TypeActionBeforeAfter
      Weakness type (CWE)added
      —
      CWE-457

      Source identifier: 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0

    2. Record modifiedCISA ADP

      CISA assessment (SSVC): exploitation: none known, automatable: no

      Show the original change
      Individual changes of this event as published by NVD
      TypeActionBeforeAfter
      SSVC assessmentadded
      —
      {"id":"CVE-2026-43303","role":"CISA Coordinator","options":[{"exploitation":"none"},{"automatable":"no"},{"technicalImpact":"total"}],"version":"2.0.3","timestamp":"2026-10-16T15:16:18.326403Z"}

      Source identifier: 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0

    3. Record modifiedSiemens ADP

      Show 3 original changes
      Individual changes of this event as published by NVD
      TypeActionBeforeAfter
      Affected versions (publisher)added
      —
      Affected value modified. <a href="https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/blob/main/cves/2026/43xxx/CVE-2026-43303.json">CVE-2026-43303</a>
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://cert-portal.siemens.com/productcert/html/ssa-457936.html
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://cert-portal.siemens.com/productcert/html/ssa-784472.html

      Source identifier: 0b142b55-0307-4c5a-b3c9-f314f3fb7c5e

    4. Record modifiedLinux

      Show 15 original changes
      Individual changes of this event as published by NVD
      TypeActionBeforeAfter
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/23b82b7a26182ad840ae67d390d7ec9771e8c00f
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/3edb8ebbf79b9016040e8f3421d723ae3d542b32
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ac1ea219590c09572ed5992dc233bbf7bb70fef9
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d757c793853ec5483eb41ec2942c300b8fa720fb
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/e7790ab165713b79b1617ce659742ceb3a859d05
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f9719e32a67b4b00b3c9b133e8b5ffa72a26b67b
      Referenceremoved
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/23b82b7a26182ad840ae67d390d7ec9771e8c00f
      —
      Referenceremoved
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/3edb8ebbf79b9016040e8f3421d723ae3d542b32
      —
      Referenceremoved
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ac1ea219590c09572ed5992dc233bbf7bb70fef9
      —
      Referenceremoved
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d757c793853ec5483eb41ec2942c300b8fa720fb
      —
      Referenceremoved
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/e7790ab165713b79b1617ce659742ceb3a859d05
      —
      Referenceremoved
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f9719e32a67b4b00b3c9b133e8b5ffa72a26b67b
      —
      Reference typeremoved
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/23b82b7a26182ad840ae67d390d7ec9771e8c00f Types: Patch
      —
      Reference typeremoved
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ac1ea219590c09572ed5992dc233bbf7bb70fef9 Types: Patch
      —
      Reference typeremoved
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d757c793853ec5483eb41ec2942c300b8fa720fb Types: Patch
      —

      Source identifier: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

    5. Record modifiedSiemens ADP

      Show 2 original changes
      Individual changes of this event as published by NVD
      TypeActionBeforeAfter
      Affected versions (publisher)added
      —
      New affected value received. <a href="https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/blob/main/cves/2026/43xxx/CVE-2026-43303.json">CVE-2026-43303</a>
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://cert-portal.siemens.com/productcert/html/ssa-019113.html

      Source identifier: 0b142b55-0307-4c5a-b3c9-f314f3fb7c5e

    Show one older change

    1. Record modifiedLinux

      Show 3 original changes
      Individual changes of this event as published by NVD
      TypeActionBeforeAfter
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/3edb8ebbf79b9016040e8f3421d723ae3d542b32
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/e7790ab165713b79b1617ce659742ceb3a859d05
      Affected versions (publisher)changed
      Linux, Linux
      Linux, Linux

      Source identifier: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

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