CVE-2026-53284: linux NULL Pointer Dereference

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2026-53284 is a high (CVSS 7.5) NULL Pointer Dereference vulnerability in linux. EPSS estimates a 0.43% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 35.7% of scored vulnerabilities.

Timeline

1. 26-06-2026
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 21-10-2026
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: btrfs: only release the dirty pages io tree after successful writes [WARNING] With extra warning on dirty extent buffers at umount (aka, the next patch in the series), test case generic/388 can trigger the following warning about dirty extent buffers at unmount time: BTRFS critical (device dm-2 state E): emergency shutdown BTRFS error (device dm-2 state E): error while writing out transaction: -30 BTRFS warning (device dm-2 state E): Skipping commit of aborted transaction. BTRFS error (device dm-2 state EA): Transaction 9 aborted (error -30) BTRFS: error (device dm-2 state EA) in cleanup_transaction:2068: errno=-30 Readonly filesystem BTRFS info (device dm-2 state EA): forced readonly BTRFS info (device dm-2 state EA): last unmount of filesystem 4fbf2e15-f941-49a0-bc7c-716315d2777c ------------[ cut here ]------------ WARNING: disk-io.c:3311 at invalidate_and_check_btree_folios+0xfd/0x1ca [btrfs], CPU#8: umount/914368 CPU: 8 UID: 0 PID: 914368 Comm: umount Tainted: G OE 7.1.0-rc1-custom+ #372 PREEMPT(full) 2de38db8d1deae71fde295430a0ff3ab98ccf596 Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS unknown 02/02/2022 RIP: 0010:invalidate_and_check_btree_folios+0xfd/0x1ca [btrfs] Call Trace: <TASK> close_ctree+0x52e/0x574 [btrfs d2f0b1cd330d1287e7a9919d112eadfc0e914efd] generic_shutdown_super+0x89/0x1a0 kill_anon_super+0x16/0x40 btrfs_kill_super+0x16/0x20 [btrfs d2f0b1cd330d1287e7a9919d112eadfc0e914efd] deactivate_locked_super+0x2d/0xb0 cleanup_mnt+0xdc/0x140 task_work_run+0x5a/0xa0 exit_to_user_mode_loop+0x123/0x4b0 do_syscall_64+0x243/0x7c0 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x4b/0x53 </TASK> ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]--- BTRFS warning (device dm-2 state EA): unable to release extent buffer 30539776 owner 9 gen 9 refs 2 flags 0x7 BTRFS warning (device dm-2 state EA): unable to release extent buffer 30621696 owner 257 gen 9 refs 2 flags 0x7 BTRFS warning (device dm-2 state EA): unable to release extent buffer 30638080 owner 258 gen 9 refs 2 flags 0x7 BTRFS warning (device dm-2 state EA): unable to release extent buffer 30654464 owner 7 gen 9 refs 2 flags 0x7 BTRFS warning (device dm-2 state EA): unable to release extent buffer 30703616 owner 2 gen 9 refs 2 flags 0x7 BTRFS warning (device dm-2 state EA): unable to release extent buffer 30720000 owner 10 gen 9 refs 2 flags 0x7 BTRFS warning (device dm-2 state EA): unable to release extent buffer 30736384 owner 4 gen 9 refs 2 flags 0x7 BTRFS warning (device dm-2 state EA): unable to release extent buffer 30752768 owner 11 gen 9 refs 2 flags 0x7 I'm using a stripped down version, which seems to trigger the warning more reliably: _fsstress_pid="" workload() { dmesg -C mkfs.btrfs -f -K $dev > /dev/null echo 1 > /sys/kernel/debug/clear_warn_once mount $dev $mnt $fsstress -w -n 1024 -p 4 -d $mnt & _fsstress_pid=$! sleep 0 $godown $mnt pkill --echo -PIPE fsstress > /dev/null wait $_fsstress_pid unset _fsstress_pid umount $mnt if dmesg | grep -q "WARNING"; then fail fi } for (( i = 0; i < $runtime; i++ )); do echo "=== $i/$runtime ===" workload done [CAUSE] Inside btrfs_write_and_wait_transaction(), we first try to write all dirty ebs, then wait for them to finish. After that we call btrfs_extent_io_tree_release() to free all extent states from dirty_pages io tree. However if we hit an error from btrfs_write_marked_extent(), then we still call btrfs_extent_io_tree_release() to clear that dirty_pages io tree, which may contain dirty records that we haven't yet submitted. Furthermore, the later transaction cleanup path will utilize that dirty_pages io tree to properly cleanup those dirty ebs, but since it's already empty, no dirty ebs are properly cleaned up, thus will later trigger the warnings inside invalidate_btree_folios(). ---truncated---

• CWE-476NULL Pointer DereferenceThe product dereferences a pointer that it expects to be valid but is NULL.