Local privilege escalation via CQ toggle use-after-free
Published Aug 15, 2026 · Updated Aug 15, 2026
Use-after-free in the Linux kernel bnxt_re driver allows local users to escalate privileges by destroying an RDMA completion queue. The CQ destroy path frees its toggle page before bnxt_qplib_destroy_cq finishes, allowing an NQ interrupt to write a controlled value into a page returned to the allocator. Exploitation requires RDMA uverbs access and a Gen P7 bnxt_re device; the resulting kernel-memory corruption supports host crashes or privilege escalation.
Summary
What happened
Use-after-free in the Linux kernel bnxt_re driver allows local users to escalate privileges by destroying an RDMA completion queue. The CQ destroy path frees its toggle page before bnxt_qplib_destroy_cq finishes, allowing an NQ interrupt to write a controlled value into a page returned to the allocator. Exploitation requires RDMA uverbs access and a Gen P7 bnxt_re device; the resulting kernel-memory corruption supports host crashes or privilege escalation.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2026-72499
- Published
- Aug 15, 2026
- Updated
- Aug 15, 2026
- Vendor
- The Linux Kernel Organization
- Product
- Linux
- Classifications
- T1068
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Aug 15, 2026CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Aug 15, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
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- Affected versionversion=6.8
- Affected versionversion=e275919d96693c5ca964b20d73a33d52a7e57f04 <b193854675ecad43b4d69c304c1b6a90b206cc99
- Affected versionversion=e275919d96693c5ca964b20d73a33d52a7e57f04 <bb45e06f9914ca64ac95341a80a0c20bb8dd46a9
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Attacks
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Technologies
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