Bug 2555170 (CVE-2026-98696)

Summary: CVE-2026-98696 kernel: kernel: Denial of Service via use-after-free in USB serial driver deregistration
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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A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's USB serial subsystem. A local user with administrative privileges could exploit this flaw to cause a Denial of Service (DoS) or memory corruption. During the unloading of a USB serial driver module, drivers are deregistered in an incorrect sequence, allowing completion handlers to access port data after it has been released, triggering a use-after-free condition.
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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 2026-10-18 15:58:23 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

USB: serial: fix driver deregistration order

USB serial driver modules register one driver for the USB bus and one or
more drivers for the ports on the USB serial bus.

When unloading a driver module, the USB driver must be deregistered
before the USB serial bus drivers so that I/O is stopped before
unbinding the ports to avoid use-after-free in completion handlers
accessing port data.

Note that the "new_id" attributes must first be removed to prevent new
ids from being added and triggering a probe of the USB driver after it
has been deregistered.