Privilege escalation via stale GPUVM translations
Published Sep 17, 2026 · Updated Sep 18, 2026
Privilege escalation in affected Linux stable kernels allows local users to read and write physical memory through GFX6 GPU DMA. On GFX6 compute queues, gfx_v6_0_ring_emit_pipeline_sync waits with the micro-engine rather than the prefetch parser and omits PFP_SYNC_ME after VM flushes, allowing prefetched work to use stale GPUVM translations. Access to /dev/dri/renderD* and GFX6 hardware is required; successful triggering crosses GPUVM isolation and can corrupt host memory or reset the shared GPU.
Summary
What happened
Privilege escalation in affected Linux stable kernels allows local users to read and write physical memory through GFX6 GPU DMA. On GFX6 compute queues, gfx_v6_0_ring_emit_pipeline_sync waits with the micro-engine rather than the prefetch parser and omits PFP_SYNC_ME after VM flushes, allowing prefetched work to use stale GPUVM translations. Access to /dev/dri/renderD* and GFX6 hardware is required; successful triggering crosses GPUVM isolation and can corrupt host memory or reset the shared GPU.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2026-90286
- Published
- Sep 17, 2026
- Updated
- Sep 18, 2026
- Vendor
- The Linux Kernel Organization
- Product
- Linux
- Classifications
- T1068
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Sep 17, 2026CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Sep 18, 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?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=2cd46ad22383ab8372b86cdb5257589496099412 <2aa869c6b23e0b1b7f39f762618852811d75deb9
- Affected versionversion=2cd46ad22383ab8372b86cdb5257589496099412 <60f20946cd318518ddc2c0da12103c666b2b9564
- Affected versionversion=2cd46ad22383ab8372b86cdb5257589496099412 <8d752f1bb73fabe5a425acbf5c767c0fe68bf3c5
- Affected versionversion=2cd46ad22383ab8372b86cdb5257589496099412 <b5d1d3e4519dc8f1b55d6b236848bed67b11a2e8
- Affected versionversion=2cd46ad22383ab8372b86cdb5257589496099412 <e1d3018e3621c90cec070b6915836ae129656663
- Affected versionversion=2cd46ad22383ab8372b86cdb5257589496099412 <e399e9d7e291ccbeba6560fb8278c8d2aa744521
- Affected versionversion=2cd46ad22383ab8372b86cdb5257589496099412 <f37211b9c01433f0bbb4709d25df7a0257cf915b
- Affected versionversion=2cd46ad22383ab8372b86cdb5257589496099412 <fbabc39b4f0fc771b00525ffd448be6a84355048
- Affected versionversion=4.9
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Published CVSS scores
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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.
Activity data is delayed. The latest report is Sep 28, 2026.
Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
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Technologies
Your stack
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