Release of Invalid Pointer or Reference Affecting kernel package, versions *


Severity

Recommended
0.0
medium
0
10

Based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux security rating.

Threat Intelligence

EPSS
0.18% (7th percentile)

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  • Snyk IDSNYK-RHEL10-KERNEL-18640643
  • published12 Aug 2026
  • disclosed10 Aug 2026

Introduced: 10 Aug 2026

CVE-2026-68178  (opens in a new tab)
CWE-763  (opens in a new tab)

How to fix?

There is no fixed version for RHEL:10 kernel.

NVD Description

Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream kernel package and not the kernel package as distributed by RHEL. See How to fix? for RHEL:10 relevant fixed versions and status.

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.

CVSS Base Scores

version 3.1