CVE-2026-98258
HighCVSS 7.8Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
Low risk3th percentile - higher than 3% of all known CVEs
Summary
In the Linux kernel, a race condition in POSIX CPU timers can lead to use-after-free (UAF). The issue stems from losing the distinction between 'timer on expiry list' and 'delivery canceled' after changing the 'firing' flag to boolean. The fix checks whether the timer is on the expiry list instead of relying on the flag.
Risk Assessment
An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to gain unauthorized access to kernel memory, potentially leading to privilege escalation or system crash.
Recommendation
Apply the patch from the latest stable Linux kernel release that addresses this issue immediately.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
See all- CVE-2026-99216Unknown
In the Linux kernel, the Hyper-V (hv) driver incorrectly forces the VMBus connection state to DISCONNECTED before calling vmbus_disconnect(). As a result, vmbus_initiate_unload() does not unload the connection because it only acts when the state is CONNECTED, so the Hyper-V host may continue sending messages or posting VMBus interrupts.
- 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-2026-99214Unknown
In the Linux kernel, the drm/vc4 HDMI driver has an ordering issue with Packet RAM enabling. When audio is triggered by the HPD handler before video is restored, vc4_hdmi_write_infoframe() may attempt to store an infoframe while Packet RAM is disabled, causing a kernel warning (splat). The fix moves Packet RAM enable/disable into the Runtime PM hooks.
- CVE-2026-99213Unknown
In the Linux kernel vsock subsystem, the TCP_ESTABLISHED to TCP_CLOSING transition on OP_RST can race with the connect loop. Resetting a socket still present in connected_table can lead to memory corruption, including a double list add and a kernel BUG.
- CVE-2026-99212Unknown
In the Linux kernel net/rds module, rds_rdma_cm_event_handler_cmn() returns the result of rdma_resolve_route() directly to rdma_cm on RDMA_CM_EVENT_ADDR_RESOLVED. A synchronous failure causes the id ic->i_cm_id to be destroyed while RDS still owns it, leading to use of a freed id during connection shutdown.
- CVE-2026-99211Unknown
In the Linux kernel netlink subsystem, socket filters can use SKF_NET_OFF and SKF_LL_OFF to read relative to an skb's network and MAC headers. Netlink producers may reserve headroom without resetting those headers, allowing a receiving socket's filter to read data before the initialized message and disclose memory contents.
- 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.
Original NVD description (English source)
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: posix-cpu-timers: Prevent freeing a timer which is queued on the expiry list Kijo analyzed another race in the POSIX CPU timer code: Commit bf635681c906 converted cpu_timer::firing from a tristate value to a boolean. This lost the distinction between "not owned by the firing list" and "still owned, but delivery was canceled". The resulting race is: expiry handler timer_settime() timer_delete() -------------- --------------- -------------- collect timer onto private firing list firing = true observes firing = true firing = false return TIMER_RETRY wait for handler observes firing = false finish deletion unhash and free timer resume list traversal read freed elist.next -> UAF The firing bit is clearly the wrong indicator since that commit. Check whether the timer is queued on the expiry list or not instead. If it is queued clear the firing bit to prevent signal delivery as before and return TIMER_RETRY so the caller unlocks the timer which allows the expiry code to make progress and remove it from the list.
Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS

