apparmor: fix cred UAF caused by begin_current_label_crit_section()
Key facts
- Attack vector
- Local
- Privileges required
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Impact type
- —
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
- High · High · High
- Fix status
- Partial Red Hat: 1 without a fix
Attack profile from CVSS 3.1 · CNA. Fix status from CNA and Red Hat.
Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: apparmor: fix cred UAF caused by begin_current_label_crit_section() AppArmor's begin_current_label_crit_section() is a scary function called from lots of LSM hooks (in particular VFS/socket-related ones) that checks if the label referenced by the current creds is marked FLAG_STALE, and if so, attempts to use aa_replace_current_label() to replace the creds with an updated version that uses a new label. The first problem with this is that it would directly lead to UAF of `struct cred` if anything in the kernel takes a pointer to the current creds and accesses these past a security hook invocation that replaces creds, like so: ``` const struct cred *cred = current_cred(); alloc_file_pseudo(...); uid_t uid = cred->euid; ``` I don't know if anything in the kernel actually does this, but I think it is very surprising that this pattern could lead to UAF. The second problem is that things go wrong when aa_replace_current_label() runs with overridden credentials. aa_replace_current_label() bails out if `current_cred() != current_real_cred()` (mirroring the check in proc_pid_attr_write()), but this check can't actually reliably detect overridden credentials because the overridden creds can be the same as the objective creds. So in approximately the following scenario, things go wrong: 1. task begins with <creds A> (as both objective and subjective creds), with refcount=2 2. task grabs an extra reference on <creds A> for overriding 3. task calls override_creds(<creds A>), which returns a pointer to the old subjective creds (<creds A>) 4. task enters AppArmor LSM hook 5. AppArmor checks that objective/subjective creds are equal 6. AppArmor replaces both cred pointers with <creds B> and drops 2 refs on <creds A> 7. task leaves AppArmor LSM hook 8. task calls revert_creds(<creds A>) 9. now task->cred is <creds A> while task->real_cred is <creds B>, but the task_struct logically holds two references to <creds B> 10. another task drops the extra reference on <creds A> that was used for overriding, refcount drops to 0 11. now task->real_cred points to freed creds At this point, any access to current_cred() will be UAF. I have a test case where I run aa-disable on a profile while a process using that profile is blocked on splice() from a FUSE passthrough file into a full pipe; after the profile update, the pipe becomes empty, splice() resumes, the credentials go out of sync, and a subsequent getuid() syscall results in a KASAN UAF splat. To fix this, instead of directly replacing creds, do it via task_work that will run at the end of the current syscall. (The point in time at which the cred replacement happens should have no correctness impact; it is just a performance optimization to avoid unnecessarily touching the refcount of the new label.) Note that AppArmor still performs direct cred replacements in the sb_pivotroot LSM hook after this change, and that direct cred replacements can still happen in VFS ->write() callbacks via proc_pid_attr_write(). There are two options for what to do with aa_dup_task_ctx(): Either explicitly reset new->label_replacement_pending after the entire aa_task_ctx has been copied, or switch to manually copying members over. I am switching to manually copying members over because that should make bugs more obvious.
Why it matters now
SSVC decision points
Not available: CISA has not published SSVC decision points for this record.
Affected products
Remediation
- Fix · CNA Linux (Linux) Fixed in 6.1.191, 6.6.160, 6.12.109, 6.18.50, 7.2.4, 7.3
Vendor assessments
Red Hat
Red Hat rating: Moderate. Red Hat's page for this CVE →
| Product | Status | Plan or fix |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 5 | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
Not affected: 6 products
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9
- Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4
Timeline
- 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2026-89762
- 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-p69h-p269-mrvc
- 2026-10-19 Fix available: Linux/[email protected] · CNA
- 2026-10-21 Fix available: Linux/Linux@089f10b47843a86fa03a8c20799c9353660e5288, Linux/[email protected] · CNA
- 2026-10-21 1 new reference · CNA
- 2026-10-30 Fix available: Linux/Linux@42d0791f8aa90382c22dbe0443712c78d1e9d212, Linux/[email protected] · CNA
- 2026-10-30 1 new reference · CNA
- 2026-10-30 Affected versions changed · Red Hat
References
Other 6
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/42d0791f8aa90382c22dbe0443712c78d1e9d212
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/089f10b47843a86fa03a8c20799c9353660e5288
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/361488984d668235438faac28635f3632351407f
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/587a6a92b93ec314c583bbf747413af170d42540
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/580f777d6d9fd07fc034bd1aeba5c30fd48871a2
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/3f4ae5fab613dca01d6a2a8210dd832e009fcf47
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Sources
- CVE-2026-89762 · CVE Program
- CVE-2026-89762 · NVD
- FIRST EPSS
- GHSA-p69h-p269-mrvc · GitHub Advisory Database · CC BY 4.0
- CVE-2026-89762 · Red Hat security data · CC BY 4.0
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