CVE Catalog

CVE-2026-98642

Low risk· EPSS 6%
Published: Updated: Translated: NVD NIST

Exploitation Probability (EPSS)

Low risk
0.17%

6th percentile - higher than 6% of all known CVEs

Summary

A use-after-free (UAF) vulnerability exists in the Linux kernel's BPF memory allocator (alloc_bulk). It is caused by a lack of synchronization between concurrent consumption of ttrace lists (waiting_for_gp_ttrace and free_by_rcu_ttrace) and RCU Tasks Trace callbacks freeing memory. The fix introduces a raw spinlock to synchronize access to these lists.

Risk Assessment

This vulnerability can lead to kernel memory corruption, system crashes (panic), or potentially arbitrary code execution with kernel privileges. In multi-core environments with active BPF, the UAF race is realistic and could be exploited for privilege escalation.

Recommendation

Update the Linux kernel to a version containing the fix that introduces a raw spinlock in kernel/bpf/memalloc.c as soon as possible. Until patching, restrict BPF usage to trusted programs and monitor for KASAN errors related to llist_del_first.

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

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Original NVD description (English source)

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: bpf: Fix UAF due to concurrent consumption of ttrace lists in alloc_bulk Syzkaller repeatedly triggered UAF splats related to nodes in waiting_for_gp_ttrace within the bpf memalloc: BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in llist_del_first+0x85/0x110 lib/llist.c:61 Read of size 8 at addr ffff8881572cd080 by task syz.4.470/5112 ... llist_del_first+0x85/0x110 lib/llist.c:61 alloc_bulk+0x193/0x460 kernel/bpf/memalloc.c:229 bpf_mem_refill+0x386/0x560 kernel/bpf/memalloc.c:436 Freed by task 14: ... __free_rcu kernel/bpf/memalloc.c:281 [inline] __free_rcu_tasks_trace+0x48/0xd0 kernel/bpf/memalloc.c:291 rcu_tasks_invoke_cbs+0x1ec/0x3e0 kernel/rcu/tasks.h:571 rcu_tasks_one_gp+0x13d/0x220 kernel/rcu/tasks.h:621 rcu_tasks_kthread+0xf3/0x120 kernel/rcu/tasks.h:651 The reason is that the UAF occurs after the RCU Tasks Trace GP expires: when the __free_rcu() callback runs, there is no synchronization protecting llist_del_all() against concurrent alloc_bulk() operating on waiting_for_gp_ttrace, leading to the race condition below: CPU0 CPU1 __free_rcu (RCU Tasks Trace callback) alloc_bulk llist_del_first(&c->waiting_for_gp_ttrace) entry = smp_load_acquire(&head->first); do { if (entry == NULL) return NULL; free_all(llist_del_all(&c->waiting_for_gp_ttrace)) llist_for_each_safe(pos, t, llnode) free_one(pos); next = READ_ONCE(entry->next); <-- trigger UAF } while (!try_cmpxchg(&head->first, &entry, next)); In addition, there is also a theoretical race condition on the free_by_rcu_ttrace list. This race requires two preconditions: an in-flight Tasks Trace GP keeping c->call_rcu_ttrace_in_progress == 1, and concurrent cross-CPU frees repopulating c->free_by_rcu_ttrace with new nodes. Under these conditions, the following scenario triggers UAF: // CPU0 // irq work is still busy (on PREEMPT_RT) alloc_bulk() llist_del_first(&c->free_by_rcu_ttrace) entry = smp_load_acquire(&head->first); do { if (entry == NULL) return NULL; // CPU1 bpf_mem_alloc_destroy() WRITE_ONCE(c->draining, true) // wait for CPU0 irq_work_sync() // CPU2 do_call_rcu_ttrace(tgt(CPU0)) if (c->draining) { llist_del_all(&c->free_by_rcu_ttrace) free_all() } // CPU0 continue next = READ_ONCE(entry->next); <-- trigger UAF while (!try_cmpxchg(&head->first, &entry, next)); Fix this by introducing a raw spinlock to synchronize the concurrent consumption on waiting_for_gp_ttrace and free_by_rcu_ttrace.

Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS