CVE-2026-45251

Published May 21, 2026

Last updated 4 days ago

CVSS high 7.8

Overview

Description
A file descriptor can be closed while a thread is blocked in a poll(2) or select(2) call waiting for that descriptor. Because the blocked thread does not hold a reference to the underlying object, this closure may result in the object being freed while the thread remains blocked. In this situation, the kernel must remove the blocked thread from the per-object wait queue prior to freeing the object. In the case of some file descriptor types, the kernel failed to unlink blocked threads from the object before freeing it. When the blocked thread is subsequently woken, it accesses memory that has already been freed resulting in a use-after-free vulnerability. The use-after-free vulnerability may be triggered by an unprivileged local user and can be exploited to obtain superuser privileges.
Source
secteam@freebsd.org
NVD status
Analyzed
Products
freebsd

Risk scores

CVSS 3.1

Type
Secondary
Base score
7.8
Impact score
5.9
Exploitability score
1.8
Vector string
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Severity
HIGH

Weaknesses

secteam@freebsd.org
CWE-416

Social media

Hype score
Not currently trending

Configurations

Related CVEs

  1. When bsdinstall or bsdconfig are prompted to scan for nearby Wi-Fi networks, they build up a list of network names and use bsddialog(1) to prompt the user to select a network. This is implemented using a shell script, and the code which handled network names was not careful to prevent expansion by the shell. As a result, a suitably crafted network name can be used to execute commands via a subshell. The problem can be exploited to execute code as root on the system running bsdinstall or bsdconfig. The attacker would need to create an access point with a specially crafted name and be within range of a Wi-Fi scan. Note that bsdinstall and bsdconfig are vulnerable as soon as the user prompts them to scan for nearby networks; they do not need to actually select the malicious network.•CVE-2026-45255
  2. ptrace(PT_SC_REMOTE) failed to properly validate parameters for the syscall(2) and __syscall(2) meta-system calls. As a result, a user with the ability to debug a process may trigger arbitrary code execution in the kernel, even if the target process has no special privileges. The missing validation allows an unprivileged local user to escalate privileges, potentially gaining full control of the affected system.•CVE-2026-45253
  3. When a fusefs file system implements extended attributes, the kernel may send a FUSE_LISTXATTR message to the userspace daemon to retrieve the list of extended attributes for a given file. The FUSE protocol requires the daemon to return a packed list of NUL-terminated strings. The fusefs kernel module calls strlen() on this daemon-supplied buffer without first verifying that the entire list is NUL-terminated. If a malicious daemon sends a non-NUL-terminated list, the fusefs kernel module may read beyond the end of one heap-allocated buffer and potentially write beyond the end of a second buffer. A malicious daemon could disclose up to 253 bytes of kernel heap memory, or it could inject up to 250 attacker-controlled bytes into unallocated kernel heap space.•CVE-2026-45252
  4. In the case of the cap_net service, when a key present in the old limit was omitted from the new limit, the missing key was treated as "allow any" instead of being rejected. In certain scenarios, an application that had previously restricted a subset of network operations could ask for a new limit that extended the permissions of the process.•CVE-2026-45254
  5. libcasper(3) communicates with helper processes via UNIX domain sockets, and uses the select(2) system call to wait for data to become available. However, it does not verify that its socket descriptor fits within select(2)'s descriptor set size limit of FD_SETSIZE (1024). An attacker able to cause an application using libcasper(3) to allocate large file descriptors, e.g., by opening many descriptors and executing a program which is not careful to close them upon startup, may trigger stack corruption. If the target application runs with setuid root privileges, this could be used to escalate local privileges.•CVE-2026-39461

References

Sources include official advisories and independent security research.