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TI-2026-52441 Aliases CVE-2026-74658GHSA-m8rg-mx7q-fp2c

futex: Prevent robust futex exit race some more

Priority LOW 22Published · Updated

Key facts

Attack vector
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Privileges required
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User interaction
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Attack complexity
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Impact type
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Confidentiality · integrity · availability
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Fix status
Partial Red Hat: 2 without a fix

No CVSS vector from any source. Fix status from CNA and Red Hat.

Summary

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: futex: Prevent robust futex exit race some more A robust futex unlock stores 0 over the whole futex value - wiping FUTEX_WAITERS - and wakes a single waiter. That wakeup is a one-shot notification: the protocol relies on its recipient to either acquire the futex (and eventually unlock while aware of the remaining contention) or re-arm FUTEX_WAITERS before sleeping again. If the woken waiter is killed before it can do either, the kernel must jump in and wake the next task down the line. This is a known complication of the futex protocol with a previous partial fix in commit ca16d5bee598 ("futex: Prevent robust futex exit race"). Unfortunately, that fix is insufficient. If a third task re-acquired the futex through the uncontended fast path in the meantime, the notification is lost: robust exit processing sees that it is owned by another task and does nothing, while the new owner sees no FUTEX_WAITERS when it unlocks and wakes nobody. The remaining waiters sleep forever behind a free futex: A owns the futex, B and C sleep in FUTEX_WAIT uval == A | FUTEX_WAITERS A robust unlock: store 0, FUTEX_WAKE(1) wakes B uval == 0 D fast path acquire: cmpxchg(0 -> D) uval == D, no FUTEX_WAITERS B killed before acting on the wakeup B exit walk, pending op: owner D != B -> no action D unlock: no FUTEX_WAITERS -> no wake C sleeps forever This is clearly a shortcoming in the implementation, which fails to keep the FUTEX_WAITERS bit consistent. Work around this by augmenting the robust list exit processing to also perform the extra wakeup if the futex word is owned by another thread but FUTEX_WAITERS is not set. This does not fix the problem of a non-contended take over/release and free sequence, which has been discussed for years and has been addressed by commit 3ca9595d9fb6 ("futex: Add support for unlocking robust futexes") and subsequent changes, but failed to take the problem described above into account. A more complete solution which is based on the in kernel unlock of contended robust futexes has been discussed in the context of this change and should show up in mainline sooner than later. [ tglx: Amend change log slightly and fixup coding style ]

Why it matters now

Exploitation None reported CISA SSVC · not in CISA KEV
EPSS 0.00177 7th percentileScored 2026-11-07
Fix Partial Linux (Linux): 3.17, 4.10, 4.15 +11Red Hat: 2 without a fix

SSVC decision points

CISA ADP · SSVC 2.0.3

Exploitation
None
Automatable
No
Technical impact
Partial

The decision (Track, Attend, Act) also depends on your mission and well-being impact; see CISA's SSVC guide.

Affected products

VendorProductAffected versionsFixed inStatusSource
LinuxLinux3.16.82 to before 3.17; 4.9.264 to before 4.10; 4.14.158 to before 4.15; 4.19.87 to before 4.20; 5.3.14 to before 5.4; 5.4.1 to before 5.53.17, 4.10, 4.15, 4.20, 5.4, 5.5Patch availableCNA
LinuxLinux5.5 and later5.10.265, 5.15.216, 6.1.183, 6.6.152, 6.12.104, 6.18.45, 7.1.9, 7.2Patch availableCNA
  • Linux VendorLinux Affected 3.16.82 to before 3.17; 4.9.264 to before 4.10; 4.14.158 to before 4.15; 4.19.87 to before 4.20; 5.3.14 to before 5.4; 5.4.1 to before 5.5 Fixed in 3.17, 4.10, 4.15, 4.20, 5.4, 5.5 Patch available CNA
  • Linux VendorLinux Affected 5.5 and later Fixed in 5.10.265, 5.15.216, 6.1.183, 6.6.152, 6.12.104, 6.18.45, 7.1.9, 7.2 Patch available CNA

CPE names Threatist (inferred) · 1

Inferred from how NVD named this product before; not given by a source.

CPEVersionsRoleVendor
cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*——Linux
  • cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* Versions — — ·Linux

Remediation

  • Fix · CNA Linux (Linux) Fixed in 3.17, 4.10, 4.15, 4.20, 5.4, 5.5
  • Fix · CNA Linux (Linux) Fixed in 5.10.265, 5.15.216, 6.1.183, 6.6.152, 6.12.104, 6.18.45, 7.1.9, 7.2

Vendor assessments

Red Hat

Red Hat rating: Moderate. Red Hat's page for this CVE →

ProductStatusPlan or fix
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10AffectedNo fix yet: Fix deferred
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9AffectedNo fix yet: Fix deferred
Not affected: 3 products
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8

Timeline

  1. 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2026-74658
  2. 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-m8rg-mx7q-fp2c
  3. 2026-11-06 CISA SSVC decision points changed

References

  • TI-2025-26358 tls: fix handling of zero-length records on the rx_list KEVCVSS 3.1CRITICAL 9.8
  • TI-2026-38352 netfilter: bridge: make ebt_snat ARP rewrite writable KEVCVSS 3.1HIGH 8.8
  • TI-2021-02452 Incorrect authorization in Ubuntu linux kernel KEVCVSS 3.1HIGH 8.8
  • TI-2013-05264 The (1) get_user and (2) put_user API functions in the Linux kernel before 3.5.5 on the… KEVCVSS 3.1HIGH 8.8
  • TI-2022-00125 Integer overflow in kernel KEVCVSS 3.1HIGH 8.4
  • TI-2013-01864 The perf_swevent_init function in kernel/events/core.c in the Linux kernel before 3.8.9… KEVCVSS 3.1HIGH 8.4
See all 21741 →

Sources