CVE-2026-45914 Revert "hwmon: (ibmpex) fix use-after-free in high/low store"

High 7.8 Published 27 May 2026 Updated 27 May 2026

A use-after-free vulnerability in the ibmpex hwmon driver can cause a kernel crash when sensor attributes are removed concurrently with reads.

Exploited in the wild: Not known
Login needed: Any signed-in user
Attackable: Local or same network only
Victim action needed: Not needed
Fix: Available

What is CVE-2026-45914?

CVE-2026-45914 is a high-severity use after free vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 27 May 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

Official description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

Revert "hwmon: (ibmpex) fix use-after-free in high/low store"

This reverts commit 6946c726c3f4c36f0f049e6f97e88c510b15f65d.

Jean Delvare points out that the patch does not completely fix the reported problem, that it in fact introduces a (new) race condition, and that it may actually not be needed in the first place.

Various AI reviews agree. Specific and relevant AI feedback:

" This reordering sets the driver data to NULL before removing the sensor attributes in the loop below.

ibmpex_show_sensor() retrieves this driver data via dev_get_drvdata() but does not check if it is NULL before dereferencing it to access data->sensors[].

If a userspace process reads a sensor file (like temp1_input) while this delete function is running, could it race with the dev_set_drvdata(..., NULL) call here and crash in ibmpex_show_sensor()?

Would it be safer to keep the original order where device_remove_file() is called before clearing the driver data? device_remove_file() should wait for any active sysfs callbacks to complete, which might already prevent the use-after-free this patch intends to fix. "

Revert the offending patch. If it can be shown that the originally reported alleged race condition does indeed exist, it can always be re-introduced with a complete fix.

Weakness: CWE-416

Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-45914?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2026-45914?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Upgrade to the fixed version. These bugs are found with fuzzing and sanitisers and avoided by memory-safe languages. More about Use after free.

Is CVE-2026-45914 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-45914 in the wild and no public exploit code.

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

Also known as BELL-CVE-2026-45914, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-45914, GHSA-wf7m-gffh-f29c, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2026-45914, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2404-CVE-2026-45914, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-45914.