CVE Catalog

CVE-2026-98530

Low risk· EPSS 9%
Published: Updated: Translated: NVD NIST

Exploitation Probability (EPSS)

Low risk
0.20%

9th percentile - higher than 9% of all known CVEs

Summary

A flaw in the Linux kernel kprobes subsystem causes a permanent hang when disabling kprobe optimization. Writing 0 to /proc/sys/debug/kprobes-optimization while a kprobe is jump-optimized leaves the writer sleeping forever in D state with kprobe_sysctl_mutex held, blocking any subsequent access to that sysctl. The issue stems from improper completion synchronization between the optimizer thread and flush callers.

Risk Assessment

This vulnerability can cause a permanent hang of processes and block access to the kprobes sysctl interface, potentially requiring a system reboot. It can be exploited locally to perform a denial of service attack.

Recommendation

Update the Linux kernel to a version containing the fix that replaces the completion mechanism with an optimizer pass counter using wake_up_var_locked() and wait_var_event_mutex(). Until patched, avoid concurrent writes to /proc/sys/debug/kprobes-optimization and the debugfs enabled file while kprobe optimization is active.

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

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Original NVD description (English source)

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: kprobes: Fix permanent hang when flushing the kprobe optimizer Writing 0 to /proc/sys/debug/kprobes-optimization while a kprobe is jump-optimized never returns. The writer sleeps in D state forever with kprobe_sysctl_mutex held, so any later read or write of that sysctl hangs as well. For example, with vfs_read+9 as an optimizable address in this build: # cd /sys/kernel/tracing # echo 'p:myprobe vfs_read+9' >> kprobe_events # echo 1 > events/kprobes/myprobe/enable # # wait until /sys/kernel/debug/kprobes/list shows [OPTIMIZED] # echo 0 > /proc/sys/debug/kprobes-optimization INFO: task sh:246 blocked for more than 10 seconds. Call Trace: <TASK> __schedule+0x1176/0x4f70 schedule+0xdc/0x2c0 schedule_timeout+0x17b/0x260 wait_for_completion+0x173/0x3c0 wait_for_kprobe_optimizer_locked+0xbc/0x130 proc_kprobes_optimization_handler+0x156/0x1b0 proc_sys_call_handler+0x324/0x490 vfs_write+0x52d/0xfe0 ksys_write+0xff/0x200 do_syscall_64+0x106/0x630 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f </TASK> ... INFO: task cat:265 is blocked on a mutex likely owned by task sh:246. wait_for_kprobe_optimizer_locked() reinitializes optimizer_completion, asks the optimizer thread to flush and sleeps in wait_for_completion(). The thread drains the (un)optimizing lists, but calls complete() only if completion_done() is true, i.e. if the completion is already done, which never happens while someone waits. disarm_all_kprobes() and kprobe_trace_self_tests_init() wait the same way. Calling complete() unconditionally would not be enough: the waiter drops kprobe_mutex while it sleeps, and nothing else serializes the sysctl handler against the debugfs "enabled" file. A second flusher that still finds the lists non-empty, e.g. because a disabled probe is queued for unoptimizing, reinitializes the completion under the first: sysctl write debugfs "enabled" write unoptimize_all_kprobes() wait_for_kprobe_optimizer_locked() init_completion(c) mutex_unlock(&kprobe_mutex) wait_for_completion(c) disarm_all_kprobes() wait_for_kprobe_optimizer_locked() init_completion(c) // c->wait is reset, the first // waiter is off the queue mutex_unlock(&kprobe_mutex) wait_for_completion(c) kprobe_optimizer() complete(c) // wakes the debugfs writer only where c is &optimizer_completion. Lining up the two writes during an optimizer pass loses the sysctl writer this way. Replace the completion with a counter of optimizer passes, bumped at the end of each pass and signalled with wake_up_var_locked(), both under kprobe_mutex. A flusher samples the count and waits with wait_var_event_mutex(), which drops kprobe_mutex only while sleeping, so a new count means a whole pass ran in the meantime. Nothing is reinitialized, so several flushers can sleep in the wait at once.

Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS