Local privilege escalation via AMT teardown race
Published Aug 10, 2026 · Updated Aug 10, 2026
Use-after-free in the Linux kernel AMT driver from 5.16 allows local users to crash the kernel or corrupt kernel memory during device removal. amt_dev_stop() cancels req_wq and discovery_wq, but amt_event_work() can requeue them after cancellation, so they dereference amt_dev after the netdev is freed. Exploitation requires low-privilege local access with namespace CAP_NET_ADMIN and an AMT device; the race can cause a panic, hang, memory disclosure, memory writes, or privilege escalation.
Summary
What happened
Use-after-free in the Linux kernel AMT driver from 5.16 allows local users to crash the kernel or corrupt kernel memory during device removal. amt_dev_stop() cancels req_wq and discovery_wq, but amt_event_work() can requeue them after cancellation, so they dereference amt_dev after the netdev is freed. Exploitation requires low-privilege local access with namespace CAP_NET_ADMIN and an AMT device; the race can cause a panic, hang, memory disclosure, memory writes, or privilege escalation.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2026-68152
- Published
- Aug 10, 2026
- Updated
- Aug 10, 2026
- Vendor
- The Linux Kernel Organization
- Product
- Linux
- Classifications
- CWE-364, T1068
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Aug 10, 2026CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Aug 10, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
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- Affected versionversion=5.16
- Affected versionversion=cbc21dc1cfe949e37b2a54c71511579f1899e8d4 <006340cf06881b6ff49767d8b6f3c4f7b892670c
- Affected versionversion=cbc21dc1cfe949e37b2a54c71511579f1899e8d4 <1a644db2cf59f164cdf3c75995bab5aadc097528
- Affected versionversion=cbc21dc1cfe949e37b2a54c71511579f1899e8d4 <a46bfa01e01df0f6f6dc4b0be18db002d6d2dbd2
- Affected versionversion=cbc21dc1cfe949e37b2a54c71511579f1899e8d4 <ea20c44935d6142daecfa9b39d635033a7553e1b
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
No public exploit references are available in this record.
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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