Bug 2513202 (CVE-2026-68174)

Summary: CVE-2026-68174 kernel: tracing: Fix union collision of module and refcnt for dynamic events
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security <prodsec-ir-bot>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: low Docs Contact:
Priority: low    
Version: unspecifiedCC: akhatavk, aos-team-art-private, asdas, dpaolell, jdelft, jupierce, lgarciaa, mbiarnes, ppalepu, ppostler, prdhamdh, rhel-process-autobot, sghai, sidsharm, suppawar, vlaad, watson-tool-maintainers
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's tracing subsystem. When handling dynamic events, a memory collision occurs where a reference counter is mistakenly interpreted as a module pointer. This can happen when filtering or setting events for a specific module without properly checking the event's dynamic status. An attacker could exploit this by triggering a scenario that causes the kernel to attempt to dereference an invalid pointer, leading to a system crash and a Denial of Service (DoS).
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-08-10 12:24:40 UTC 
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

tracing: Fix union collision of module and refcnt for dynamic events

In 'struct trace_event_call', the 'module' pointer and the 'refcnt'
atomic variable share the same memory space in a union. For dynamic
events, the union member is 'refcnt', which acts as an active
reference counter.

When a dynamic event (such as kprobe, uprobe, fprobe, eprobe, or
wprobe) has a non-zero reference count (e.g. due to active event
triggers or perf attachments), its 'call->module' evaluates to a
small non-zero integer instead of NULL.

When filtering or setting events for a specific module (e.g., writing
':mod:<module>' to 'set_event'), the code in
'__ftrace_set_clr_event_nolock()' and 'update_event_fields()' reads
'call->module' directly without checking whether the event is dynamic.
This causes the kernel to treat the small integer (refcnt) as a
'struct module' pointer, leading to a NULL/invalid pointer dereference
(Oops) when dereferencing the module name.

Fix this by ensuring that the 'TRACE_EVENT_FL_DYNAMIC' flag is checked
before treating 'call->module' as a valid pointer in these code paths.