# CVE-2026-53342: arm64: mm: call pagetable dtor when freeing hot-removed page tables

> Missing destructor calls during hot-remove page table freeing cause kernel warnings and potential memory leaks, requiring a patch to fix.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **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:** Yes
- **Published:** 1 Jul 2026
- **Updated:** 1 Jul 2026
- **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2026-53342, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-53342, GHSA-w39q-f6gf-xv3r, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-53342

## What is CVE-2026-53342?

CVE-2026-53342 is a medium-severity memory corruption vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 1 Jul 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:

arm64: mm: call pagetable dtor when freeing hot-removed page tables

Since 5e8eb9aeeda3 ("arm64: mm: always call PTE/PMD ctor in
__create_pgd_mapping()") page-table allocation on ARM64 always calls
pagetable_{pte,pmd,pud,p4d}_ctor().  This sets the page_type to
PGTY_table, increments NR_PAGETABLE and possible allocates a PTL.  However
the matching pagetable_dtor() calls were never added.

With DEBUG_VM enabled on kernel versions prior to v6.17 without
2dfcd1608f3a9 ("mm/page_alloc: let page freeing clear any set page type")
this leads to the following warning when freeing these pages due to
page->page_type sharing page->_mapcount:

  BUG: Bad page state in process ... pfn:284fbb
  page: refcount:0 mapcount:0 mapping:0000000000000000 index:0x0 pfn:0x284fbb
  flags: 0x17fffc000000000(node=0|zone=2|lastcpupid=0x1ffff)
  page_type: f2(table)
  page dumped because: nonzero mapcount
  Call trace:
   bad_page+0x13c/0x160
   __free_frozen_pages+0x6cc/0x860
   ___free_pages+0xf4/0x180
   free_pages+0x54/0x80
   free_hotplug_page_range.part.0+0x58/0x90
   free_empty_tables+0x438/0x500
   __remove_pgd_mapping.constprop.0+0x60/0xa8
   arch_remove_memory+0x48/0x80
   try_remove_memory+0x158/0x1d8
   offline_and_remove_memory+0x138/0x180

It can also lead to leaking the ptl allocation if ALLOC_SPLIT_PTLOCKS is
defined and incorrect NR_PAGETABLE stats.  Fix this by calling
pagetable_dtor() in free_hotplug_pgtable_page() prior to freeing the page
to undo the effects of calling pagetable_*_ctor().

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-53342?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2026-53342?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2026-53342 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-53342 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

- [CVE-2026-53266](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53266/): Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-6282](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-6282/): Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2022-0185](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-0185/): Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-2094](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-2094/): Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2026-53362](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53362/): Linux Kernel Unspecified (high 7.8, exploited in the wild)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2026-53342 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-53342 is a medium-severity memory corruption vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 1 Jul 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-53342 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Linux kernel. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53342/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53342/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-53342
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-53342
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-53342

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53342/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.