CVE-2026-72183
Received Received - Intake

Landlock LANDLOCK_SCOPE_SIGNAL Bypass via SIGIO Path

Vulnerability report for CVE-2026-72183, including description, CVSS score, EPSS score, affected products, exploitability, helpful resources, and attack-flow context.

Publication date: 2026-08-15

Last updated on: 2026-08-15

Assigner: kernel.org

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: landlock: Fix LANDLOCK_SCOPE_SIGNAL bypass on the SIGIO path LANDLOCK_SCOPE_SIGNAL must prevent a sandboxed process from signaling processes outside its Landlock domain. It can be bypassed through the asynchronous SIGIO delivery path. A sandboxed process that owns any file or socket can arm it with fcntl(fd, F_SETOWN, -pgid), fcntl(fd, F_SETSIG, SIGKILL) and O_ASYNC, so that an I/O event makes the kernel deliver the chosen signal to the whole process group. As the head of its process group's task list (the default position right after fork()) that group can also hold the non-sandboxed process that launched it, e.g. a supervisor or a security monitor. The sandbox can thus kill or signal the processes LANDLOCK_SCOPE_SIGNAL is meant to protect from it. The scope is enforced in hook_file_send_sigiotask() against the Landlock domain recorded at F_SETOWN time, not the live domain of the sender. control_current_fowner() decides whether to record that domain and skips recording it when the fowner target is in the caller's thread group, which is safe only for a single-task target (PIDTYPE_PID, PIDTYPE_TGID). For a process group (PIDTYPE_PGID) pid_task() returns only one member; recording is skipped whenever that member shares the caller's thread group, and hook_file_send_sigiotask() then lets the signal fan out to the whole group unchecked. Record the domain for every non single-process target so the scope is enforced against each group member at delivery time. That recording is necessary but not sufficient on its own: the kernel signals a process group through its members' thread-group leaders, and the leader of the registrant's own process can carry a different Landlock domain than the sibling thread that armed the owner. domain_is_scoped() would then deny that leader, even though commit 18eb75f3af40 ("landlock: Always allow signals between threads of the same process") requires same-process delivery to be allowed. hook_task_kill() avoids this by evaluating same_thread_group() live, per recipient; the SIGIO path instead delegates the whole decision to a single registration-time check, which a process-group fan-out cannot honor. So also record the registrant's thread group next to its domain and exempt it at delivery: hook_file_send_sigiotask() allows the signal whenever the recipient belongs to the registrant's own process, restoring the same-process guarantee while keeping out-of-domain group members blocked. The direct kill() path (hook_task_kill) already evaluates the live domain and is unaffected. [mic: Check pid_type earlier and improve comment, fix commit message, fix comment formatting]

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Meta Information

Published
2026-08-15
Last Modified
2026-08-15
Generated
2026-08-15
AI Q&A
2026-08-15
EPSS Evaluated
N/A
NVD
EUVD

Affected Vendors & Products

Showing 1 associated CPE
Vendor Product Version / Range
linux_kernel landlock *

Helpful Resources

Exploitability

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CWE ID Description
CWE-UNKNOWN

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Executive Summary

This vulnerability in the Linux kernel allows a sandboxed process to bypass LANDLOCK_SCOPE_SIGNAL restrictions by using the SIGIO signal path. A process can arm file descriptors with signals that affect its entire process group, including non-sandboxed processes like supervisors. The kernel fails to properly enforce the sandbox scope during signal delivery to process groups.

Detection Guidance

This vulnerability is specific to the Linux kernel's Landlock security module and requires kernel-level inspection. Detection involves checking kernel logs for related errors or verifying the kernel version against patched releases. Commands like 'uname -a' can show your kernel version, and 'dmesg | grep landlock' may reveal related messages if the issue is present.

Impact Analysis

If exploited, this vulnerability could allow a compromised or malicious sandboxed process to send signals to unauthorized processes outside its intended domain. This might enable denial-of-service attacks, unauthorized process termination, or interference with critical system processes.

Compliance Impact

This vulnerability could undermine security controls required for compliance with standards like GDPR or HIPAA by allowing unauthorized process interactions. It may enable circumvention of sandboxing mechanisms designed to isolate sensitive data processing.

Mitigation Strategies

Apply the latest kernel patches from your Linux distribution to ensure the Landlock vulnerability is fixed. If patches are unavailable, consider disabling Landlock features temporarily or restricting untrusted processes from using file descriptors that could trigger SIGIO signals.

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