reboot: fix cad_pid use-after-free race
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: 7 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: reboot: fix cad_pid use-after-free race cad_pid is a single kernel-wide struct pid pointer. proc_do_cad_pid() reads it and passes it to pid_vnr() without protecting the lifetime of the referenced struct pid. A concurrent writer can replace cad_pid and drop the final reference to the old struct pid after the reader has loaded the pointer but before pid_vnr() has finished dereferencing it, causing a use-after-free. kill_cad_pid() has the same lifetime race when it passes cad_pid to kill_pid(). At the time this issue was reported, an unprivileged user could reach the sysctl through user and PID namespaces because cad_pid was registered in pid_table[]. Moving cad_pid back to the global reboot sysctl table corrected that namespace and permission mismatch, but did not fix the underlying lifetime race. Fix this by treating cad_pid as an RCU-protected pointer at both read sites and by waiting for a grace period before dropping the old reference on the write side. call_rcu(&old_pid->rcu, ...) cannot be used here because free_pid() also queues pid->rcu; queueing the same rcu_head twice can corrupt the RCU callback list. Original KASAN crash stack: kernel/pid.c:545 pid_nr_ns() # reads freed pid->level kernel/pid.c:556 pid_vnr() # calls pid_nr_ns() kernel/pid.c:775 proc_do_cad_pid() # calls pid_vnr(cad_pid)
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 6.6.160, 6.12.112, 6.18.53, 7.2.7, 7.3
Vendor assessments
Red Hat
Red Hat rating: Moderate. Red Hat's page for this CVE →
| Product | Status | Plan or fix |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 | Affected | No fix planned: Out of support scope |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
| Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 5 | Affected | No fix yet: Fix deferred |
Timeline
- 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2026-97938
- 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-9x8r-8wjj-jgjv
- 2026-10-03 Fix available: Linux/[email protected], Linux/Linux@ae3e53fe3c1241855e3a88f74877738349948c78 · CNA
- 2026-10-03 1 new reference · CNA
- 2026-10-19 Fix available: Linux/[email protected] · CNA
- 2026-10-21 Fix available: Linux/Linux@0c1a966bc047af2801a70b8eb13f9df5d7ab925f, Linux/[email protected] · CNA
- 2026-10-21 1 new reference · CNA
- 2026-10-23 Affected versions changed · Red Hat
- 2026-10-23 CVSS score changed · Red Hat
- 2026-11-06 Affected versions changed · Red Hat
References
Other 5
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/0c1a966bc047af2801a70b8eb13f9df5d7ab925f
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ae3e53fe3c1241855e3a88f74877738349948c78
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ad72e2566643fff7f01666d845fb026898155e1f
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/9a17b0e053197a6a42cdc75e75a35b17aa662088
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/5a88f78df753993469dab4d1831f8fb4256a9468
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Sources
- CVE-2026-97938 · CVE Program
- CVE-2026-97938 · NVD
- FIRST EPSS
- GHSA-9x8r-8wjj-jgjv · GitHub Advisory Database · CC BY 4.0
- CVE-2026-97938 · Red Hat security data · CC BY 4.0
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