# CVE-2026-64248: MIPS: smp: report dying CPU to RCU in stop_this_cpu()

> A missing RCU report in MIPS SMP shutdown causes system hangs during reboot, requiring a kernel patch to restore normal operation.

- **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:** 24 Jul 2026
- **Updated:** 17 Aug 2026
- **Also known as:** AZL-93363, BELL-CVE-2026-64248, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-64248, GHSA-63rm-9p6r-635w, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2204-CVE-2026-64248, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-64248

## What is CVE-2026-64248?

CVE-2026-64248 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 24 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:

MIPS: smp: report dying CPU to RCU in stop_this_cpu()

smp_send_stop() parks all secondary CPUs in stop_this_cpu(). The function
marks the CPU offline for the scheduler via set_cpu_online(false) but
never informs RCU, so RCU keeps expecting a quiescent state from CPUs
that are now spinning forever with interrupts disabled.

As long as nothing waits for an RCU grace period after smp_send_stop()
this is harmless, which is why it went unnoticed. Since commit
91840be8f710 ("irq_work: Fix use-after-free in irq_work_single() on PREEMPT_RT")
however, irq_work_sync() calls synchronize_rcu() on architectures without
an irq_work self-IPI, i.e. where arch_irq_work_has_interrupt() returns
false. That is the asm-generic default used by MIPS. Any irq_work_sync()
issued in the reboot/shutdown path after smp_send_stop() then blocks on
a grace period that can never complete, hanging the reboot:

  WARNING: CPU: 0 PID: 15 at kernel/irq_work.c:144 irq_work_queue_on
  ...
  rcu: INFO: rcu_sched detected stalls on CPUs/tasks:
  rcu: Offline CPU 1 blocking current GP.
  rcu: Offline CPU 2 blocking current GP.
  rcu: Offline CPU 3 blocking current GP.

This issue was noticed on several Realtek MIPS switch SoCs (MIPS
interAptiv) and came up during kernel bump downstream in OpenWrt from
6.18.33 to 6.18.34, after the backport of the patch to the 6.18 stable
branch. The patch also has been backported all the way back to 6.1.

Call rcutree_report_cpu_dead() once interrupts are disabled, mirroring the
generic CPU-hotplug offline path, so RCU stops waiting on the parked CPUs
and grace periods can still complete. MIPS shuts down all CPUs here
without going through the CPU-hotplug mechanism, so this report is not
otherwise issued. Reporting a dying CPU to RCU outside the regular hotplug
offline path is not unprecedented: arm64 does the same in cpu_die_early().
There it is an exception for a CPU that was coming online and is aborting
bringup, rather than the default shutdown action as on MIPS.

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-64248?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2026-64248?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2026-64248 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-64248 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-2026-64248 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-64248 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 24 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-2026-64248 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-2026-64248/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-64248/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-64248
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-64248
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-64248

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-64248/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.