Bug 2546380 (CVE-2026-98286) - CVE-2026-98286 kernel: drop_monitor: use timer_shutdown_sync() to prevent timer rearming during teardown
Summary: CVE-2026-98286 kernel: drop_monitor: use timer_shutdown_sync() to prevent tim...
Keywords:
Status: NEW
Alias: CVE-2026-98286
Product: Security Response
Classification: Other
Component: vulnerability
Version: unspecified
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
medium
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Product Security DevOps Team
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2026-10-06 09:09 UTC by OSIDB Bzimport
Modified: 2026-10-10 22:55 UTC (History)
17 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed:
Embargoed:


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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-10-06 09:09:58 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

drop_monitor: use timer_shutdown_sync() to prevent timer rearming during teardown

In drop_monitor teardown paths (net_dm_trace_off_set(),
net_dm_hw_monitor_stop(), and error unwind paths in net_dm_trace_on_set()
and net_dm_hw_monitor_start()), per-CPU timers are stopped using
timer_delete_sync() followed by cancel_work_sync().

However, there is a circular dependency between send_timer and
dm_alert_work:
1) sched_send_work() (timer callback) schedules dm_alert_work.
2) send_dm_alert() / net_dm_hw_summary_work() calls reset_per_cpu_data()
   or net_dm_hw_reset_per_cpu_data().
3) If memory allocation fails under memory pressure in the reset
   function, it re-arms the timer via mod_timer(&data->send_timer, ...).

If dm_alert_work is running concurrently while timer_delete_sync()
executes on another CPU, an allocation failure in the worker will
re-arm the timer after timer_delete_sync() has already returned.
Once cancel_work_sync() completes and module_put() is called, the timer
remains active in the timer wheel. If the module is then unloaded, the
timer will fire and execute sched_send_work() in freed memory,
triggering a kernel panic / use-after-free.

Switch from timer_delete_sync() to timer_shutdown_sync(). This guarantees
that any in-flight timer handler has finished and prevents subsequent
re-arming attempts from running workers from succeeding. When monitoring
is restarted later, timer_setup() is invoked, which cleanly
re-initializes the timer.


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