Bug 2555241 (CVE-2026-98855)

Summary: CVE-2026-98855 kernel: of/overlay: put property on deadprops only after changeset add succeeds
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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Doc Text:
A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's Device Tree overlay subsystem. When an error occurs while adding a property to a device tree overlay changeset, the allocated property is freed during error cleanup but remains tracked, leading to a second release (double-free) when the overlay node is torn down. A local user could exploit this vulnerability to trigger memory corruption, potentially leading to a Denial of Service (DoS) or privilege escalation.
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-10-18 16:04:06 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

of/overlay: put property on deadprops only after changeset add succeeds

add_changeset_property() links a new property of a not-yet-live
target node into the node's deadprops list before handing it to
of_changeset_add_property(). If that fails, the error path frees the
property but leaves the freed pointer linked in deadprops, and
of_node_release() frees it a second time when the aborted overlay's
node is released.

Record the changeset entry first and link the property into deadprops
only on success. of_changeset_add_property() never looks at the
node's property lists, so the order of the two steps is otherwise
immaterial, and the error path frees a property that nothing
references.