Bug 2555237 (CVE-2026-98858)

Summary: CVE-2026-98858 kernel: io_uring: fix task_work add use-after-free with SQPOLL
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: 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 io_uring subsystem. When submission queue polling (SQPOLL) is enabled, a race condition can cause the polling thread to free the ring context while another operation is still accessing it. A local user can exploit this use-after-free flaw to crash the system, resulting in a Denial of Service (DoS), or potentially achieve privilege escalation.
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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 16:03:50 UTC 
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

io_uring: fix task_work add use-after-free with SQPOLL

For SQPOLL, the sqpoll thread runs task_work off its own list and
doesn't need to be told about it, so it can pop and complete a request
as soon as mpscq_push() has published it. If that was the last request
holding the ring alive, io_ring_exit_work() then frees the ctx, stops
the thread, and with it the tctx, while io_req_normal_work_add() is
still looking at both after the push:

  BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in io_req_normal_work_add+0x439/0x510
  Read of size 4 at addr ff11000000ca0000 by task repro/55
  (...)
  BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in queue_work_on+0x25/0x70
  Write of size 8 at addr ff11000000c3bd00 by task repro/55

Hold an RCU read lock across the add, like io_req_local_work_add() already
does, and have io_ring_exit_work() wait for a grace period for SQPOLL rings
as well before freeing the ctx.
Comment 1 gkamathe 2026-10-24 06:01:56 UTC 
Upstream advisory:
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/security/vulns.git/plain/cve/published/2026/CVE-2026-98858.mbox