Bug 2555186 (CVE-2026-98788)
| Summary: | CVE-2026-98788 kernel: kernel: Privilege escalation via use-after-free during futex hash resizing | ||
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| Product: | [Other] Security Response | Reporter: | OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport> |
| Component: | vulnerability | Assignee: | Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev> |
| Status: | NEW --- | QA Contact: | |
| Severity: | medium | Docs Contact: | |
| Priority: | medium | ||
| Version: | unspecified | CC: | rhel-process-autobot, watson-tool-maintainers |
| Target Milestone: | --- | Keywords: | Security |
| Target Release: | --- | ||
| Hardware: | All | ||
| OS: | Linux | ||
| Whiteboard: | |||
| Fixed In Version: | Doc Type: | --- | |
| Doc Text: |
A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's futex (fast userspace mutex) subsystem. When resizing a private hash table, improper synchronization allows the old table memory to be released while another thread is still referencing it. A local attacker could exploit this race condition to trigger a use-after-free memory error, potentially resulting in privilege escalation or a denial of service (DoS) caused by a system crash.
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Story Points: | --- |
| Clone Of: | Environment: | ||
| Last Closed: | Type: | --- | |
| Regression: | --- | Mount Type: | --- |
| Documentation: | --- | CRM: | |
| Verified Versions: | Category: | --- | |
| oVirt Team: | --- | RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host: | |
| Cloudforms Team: | --- | Target Upstream Version: | |
| Embargoed: | |||
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: futex: Fix private hash use-after-free on resize poll_state_synchronize_rcu(mm->futex.phash.batches) is used by futex_ref_drop() to check that a grace period has passed since the current hash was published. This relies on batches referencing a grace period which started after the hash pointer was assigned. __futex_pivot_hash() sets mmph->batches before it replaces mmph->hash: scoped_guard(rcu) { mmph->batches = get_state_synchronize_rcu(); rcu_assign_pointer(mmph->hash, new); } The scoped_guard(rcu) doesn't stop new grace periods from starting, and if one starts between those two assignments, futex_ref_drop() can move forward while a reader still holds a pointer to the old hash. Fix things by setting mmph->batches after assigning mmph->hash. The scoped_guard(rcu) isn't needed, so let's drop that as well.