CVE-2026-74637
HighCVSS 7.8Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
Low risk2th percentile - higher than 2% of all known CVEs
Summary
A use-after-free vulnerability was found in the Linux kernel's perf subsystem, related to improper sibling event detachment from a group. When a sibling event is detached (e.g., during CPU hot-unplug), its group_leader pointer remains pointing to the old leader, which may be freed, leading to dereferencing freed memory during a PERF_IOC_FLAG_GROUP ioctl. The issue was reproduced by running the perf event fuzzer, CPU hotplug, and a stress workload concurrently.
Risk Assessment
An attacker with local access (e.g., via fuzzing or a malicious process) could cause a system crash (kernel panic) or potentially escalate privileges by exploiting the freed kernel memory. The vulnerability affects systems with perf events enabled and CPU hotplug capability.
Recommendation
Apply the official Linux kernel patch that fixes the issue by promoting the detached sibling to a singleton and fixing cgroup accounting in __event_disable(). Update the system to a kernel version containing the fix.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
See all- CVE-2026-99215Unknown
In the Linux kernel power supply subsystem, a use-after-free vulnerability exists. If a power supply is unregistered while its external_power_changed() callback is still running, the driver may free data that the callback is still accessing, leading to a kernel crash (NULL pointer dereference).
- CVE-2026-99210Unknown
In the Linux kernel accel/rocket driver, rocket_probe() stores the return value of rocket_device_init() in the file-scoped rdev pointer before checking whether it is an error pointer. On failure rdev remains an ERR_PTR, and a later probe can skip initialization and dereference the error pointer when reading rdev->num_cores.
- CVE-2026-99209Unknown
In the Linux kernel drm/xe driver, xe_evict_flags() reads tbo->resource->mem_type, but a BO can reach eviction with no ttm.resource, e.g. an imported dma-buf whose resource was freed during teardown. This causes a NULL pointer dereference and a kernel fault.
- CVE-2026-99208Unknown
In the Linux kernel drm/xe/oa driver, ttm_bo_type_kernel BOs are not guaranteed to be zeroed on allocation and may contain data from previously freed pages. Since the OA buffer is mmap'able by userspace, this can expose stale kernel memory contents.
- CVE-2026-99207Unknown
In the Linux kernel's scsi: target subsystem, target_do_delayed_work() acquired delayed_cmd_lock with a plain spin_lock() without disabling interrupts, while all other acquisition sites use spin_lock_irqsave(). Since commands can now complete in interrupt context (complete_type=1 with direct_compl_supp), this can cause a deadlock when a completion arrives on the same CPU where the work item holds the lock.
- CVE-2026-99205Unknown
In the Linux kernel, a race exists in sched_change_end() with __sched_setscheduler() for queued but non-running tasks. When a task's scheduling class changes (e.g., from SCHED_OTHER to SCHED_RR), rq->next_class is not updated and the need-resched indicator is not set, causing the CPU to idle despite a runnable task being present.
- CVE-2026-99200Unknown
In the Linux kernel, the hisi_femac network driver (net: hisilicon) assigns netdev_ops only after connecting the PHY. With CONFIG_NET_SHAPER enabled, phy_attach_direct() reads uninitialized netdev_ops, causing a kernel panic from a NULL pointer dereference.
- CVE-2026-99199Unknown
In the Linux kernel, the hip04_eth network driver (net: hisilicon) calls of_phy_connect() before ndev->netdev_ops is assigned. With CONFIG_NET_SHAPER enabled, phy_attach_direct() reads uninitialized netdev_ops, causing a kernel panic from a NULL pointer dereference.
- CVE-2026-99198Unknown
In the Linux kernel, the owl_emac network driver (net: ethernet: actions) calls owl_emac_phy_init(), which connects the PHY, before netdev->netdev_ops is assigned. With CONFIG_NET_SHAPER enabled, phy_attach_direct() reads uninitialized netdev_ops, causing a kernel panic from a NULL pointer dereference.
- CVE-2026-99197Unknown
In the Linux kernel, the mv643xx_eth network driver connects the PHY before dev->netdev_ops is assigned. With CONFIG_NET_SHAPER enabled, phy_attach_direct() reads uninitialized netdev_ops, causing a kernel panic from a NULL pointer dereference.
Original NVD description (English source)
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: perf/core: Fix group leader use-after-free after sibling detach perf_group_detach() handles leader and sibling detach differently. When the group leader is detached, all siblings are promoted to singleton events and their group_leader pointer is reset to themselves. When a sibling is detached, it is removed from the leader's sibling_list, but its group_leader pointer is left pointing at the old leader. That is harmless when the sibling is being closed and freed immediately, as in the DETACH_DEAD path. It is not safe when the sibling is detached but kept alive, such as during CPU hotplug with DETACH_GROUP. In that case the sibling is removed from the context, while its file descriptor can still keep it alive. A typical failing sequence is: - A group contains leader L and sibling S. - CPU hot-unplug detaches S with DETACH_GROUP, removing it from L->sibling_list but leaving S->group_leader == L. - L is later closed and freed. - A PERF_IOC_FLAG_GROUP ioctl on S follows S->group_leader and dereferences the freed leader. This was reproduced by running the perf event fuzzer, CPU hotplug, and a stress workload concurrently: Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address 006b6b6b6b6b6cdb CPU: 2 PID: 12489 Comm: perf_fuzzer 6.18.7 PREEMPT pc : perf_ioctl+0x34c/0xc68 x20: ffffff89a3fa2c70 x8 : 6b6b6b6b6b6b6b6b Code: 943c4a0e 340047a0 f9404a94 f9411e88 (f940b908) Call trace: perf_ioctl+0x34c/0xc68 (P) __arm64_sys_ioctl+0xa0/0xf4 invoke_syscall+0x58/0xe4 el0_svc_common+0xa8/0xdc do_el0_svc+0x1c/0x28 el0_svc+0x40/0xc0 el0t_64_sync_handler+0x68/0xdc el0t_64_sync+0x1c4/0x1c8 The fault happened in perf_ioctl(), where perf_event_for_each() follows the stale group_leader pointer and perf_event_for_each_child() then dereferences the freed leader's context. Fix the use-after-free by promoting the detached sibling to a singleton. Also fix __event_disable() cgroup accounting and event state change.
Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS

