Bug 2484477 (CVE-2026-46259)

Summary: CVE-2026-46259 kernel: procfs: fix missing RCU protection when reading real_parent in do_task_stat()
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: unspecifiedCC: rhel-process-autobot, watson-tool-maintainers
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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Doc Text:
A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's procfs component. When reading /proc/[pid]/stat, the do_task_stat() function accesses task->real_parent without proper Read-Copy-Update (RCU) protection. This missing protection creates a race condition, which can lead to a Use-After-Free (UAF) vulnerability. A local attacker could potentially exploit this to cause a system crash or achieve other unspecified impacts.
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-06-03 18:03:23 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

procfs: fix missing RCU protection when reading real_parent in do_task_stat()

When reading /proc/[pid]/stat, do_task_stat() accesses task->real_parent
without proper RCU protection, which leads to:

  cpu 0                               cpu 1
  -----                               -----
  do_task_stat
    var = task->real_parent
                                      release_task
                                        call_rcu(delayed_put_task_struct)
    task_tgid_nr_ns(var)
      rcu_read_lock   <--- Too late to protect task->real_parent!
      task_pid_ptr    <--- UAF!
      rcu_read_unlock

This patch uses task_ppid_nr_ns() instead of task_tgid_nr_ns() to add
proper RCU protection for accessing task->real_parent.