CVE-2026-97918
Received
Received - Intake
Use-After-Free in Linux Kernel Tracing Histogram Trigger
Vulnerability report for CVE-2026-97918, including description, CVSS score, EPSS score, affected products, exploitability, helpful resources, and attack-flow context.
Publication date: 2026-09-25
Last updated on: 2026-09-25
Assigner: kernel.org
Description
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
tracing: Undo the registration when enabling the histogram trigger fails
Commit 6f86bdeab633 ("tracing: Fix bad hist from corrupting named_triggers
list") described how a trigger that is registered but not on file->triggers
ends up freed while still on the global named_triggers list, and moved the
registration down so that hist_trigger_enable() follows it immediately. One
path still gets there. hist_trigger_enable() adds the trigger and takes it
straight back out when the event cannot be enabled:
list_add_tail_rcu(&data->list, &file->triggers);
update_cond_flag(file);
if (trace_event_trigger_enable_disable(file, 1) < 0) {
list_del_rcu(&data->list);
update_cond_flag(file);
ret--;
}
so the list walk in hist_unregister_trigger() matches nothing, test stays
NULL, and the ->free() that would call del_named_trigger() is skipped.
out_unreg falls through to out_free, which frees the trigger anyway:
BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in find_named_trigger+0xac/0xc0
Read of size 8 at addr ffff8880091d3160 by task init/1
find_named_trigger+0xac/0xc0
hist_register_trigger+0xc1/0xa00
event_hist_trigger_parse+0x3146/0x6af0
event_trigger_write+0xce/0x160
Freed by task 69:
kfree+0x154/0x420
trigger_kthread_fn+0xfd/0x160
Leave the trigger where hist_unregister_trigger() can find it and let that
undo the registration, which is the only code that knows all of what
cmd_ops->init() took: the named list entry, the hist_pad reference, the
reference on the trigger a named histogram is shared with, and the copied
cmd_ops. It also pairs the failed trace_event_trigger_enable_disable(),
whose sm_ref and buffered event reference are otherwise left behind.
Since ->free() releases trigger_data and, for a trigger that does not share
its histogram, hist_data with it, out_unreg can no longer fall through to
out_free. For a trigger that does share, hist_register_trigger() has
already destroyed the caller's hist_data, so the fall-through was reading
freed memory there as well.
Move the enable_timestamps check in hist_unregister_trigger() above the
->free() call for the same reason: hist_data does not outlive it once the
trigger being removed is the one that owns it.
CVSS Scores
EPSS Scores
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Meta Information
Affected Vendors & Products
| Vendor | Product | Version / Range |
|---|---|---|
| linux | linux_kernel | * |
Helpful Resources
Exploitability
| CWE ID | Description |
|---|---|
| CWE-UNKNOWN |