CVE-2026-98273
Received
Received - Intake
Kernel Crash in Linux x86 kprobes Due to CS CALL Instruction Handling
Vulnerability report for CVE-2026-98273, including description, CVSS score, EPSS score, affected products, exploitability, helpful resources, and attack-flow context.
Publication date: 2026-10-06
Last updated on: 2026-10-06
Assigner: kernel.org
Description
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
x86/kprobes: Fix crash when probing CS CALL instructions
When using eBPF to probe CS CALL instructions within a function,
a crash can be triggered.
The eBPF tool probes offset 257 of the __hrtimer_run_queues()
function:
<__hrtimer_run_queues+249>: nopl 0x0(%rax,%rax,1)
<__hrtimer_run_queues+254>: mov %r14,%rdi
<__hrtimer_run_queues+257>: cs call <__x86_indirect_thunk_r12>
<__hrtimer_run_queues+263>: mov %eax,%r12d
<__hrtimer_run_queues+266>: xchg %ax,%ax
<__hrtimer_run_queues+268>: mov %r13,%rdi
Which triggers this crash:
BUG: unable to handle page fault for address: 00000000000f41c9
#PF: supervisor write access in kernel mode
#PF: error_code(0x0002) - not-present page
PGD 0 P4D 0
Oops: 0002 [#1] SMP NOPTI
CPU: 1 PID: 0 Comm: swapper/1 Kdump: loaded Tainted: P
RIP: 0010:__hrtimer_run_queues+0x106/0x230
Note that __hrtimer_run_queues+0x106 is __hrtimer_run_queues+262, which is
at the 6th byte of the above CS CALL instruction. Since the CS CALL
instruction occupies 6 bytes, the exception occurred in the middle of that
call instruction.
The root cause is that when using eBPF tools to probe in the middle of a
function, a kprobe with INT3 is used as the underlying implementation.
During single-step emulation of the original CALL instruction,
int3_emulate_call() assumes that the probed CALL instruction is 5 bytes
long. However, the actual CS-prefixed CALL instruction occupies 6 bytes,
so it constructs an incorrect exception return address. When the CPU
returns from the kprobe handler, the next instruction to be executed is at
the address of the last byte of that CS CALL instruction. Coincidentally,
starting from that address, the CPU fetches and decodes a completely
different instruction, which ultimately triggers a kernel crash.
Fix the issue by using the actual instruction length obtained from
the instruction decoder when constructing the exception return
address, rather than relying on the hardcoded CALL_INSN_SIZE macro.
[ mingo: Refined the changelog ]
CVSS Scores
EPSS Scores
| Probability: | |
| Percentile: |
Meta Information
Affected Vendors & Products
| Vendor | Product | Version / Range |
|---|---|---|
| Linux | Linux | 6256e668b7af9d81472e03c6a171630c08f8858a |
| Linux | Linux | 6256e668b7af9d81472e03c6a171630c08f8858a |
| Linux | Linux | 6256e668b7af9d81472e03c6a171630c08f8858a |
| Linux | Linux | ba7d1dae9fe866abe74bb1e849fb85983b7c4c37 |
| Linux | Linux | 5.10.190 |
| Linux | Linux | 5.13 |
Helpful Resources
Exploitability
CWE
KEV
| CWE ID | Description |
|---|---|
| CWE-UNKNOWN |
