IM
IronMonkey Threat Research

CVE-2026-46173 HIGH

Published: 2026-05-28 | Last Modified: 2026-09-08 | Status: Modified

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: exit: prevent preemption of oopsing TASK_DEAD task When an already-exiting task oopses, make_task_dead() currently calls do_task_dead() with preemption enabled. That is forbidden: do_task_dead() calls __schedule(), which has a comment saying "WARNING: must be called with preemption disabled!". If an oopsing task is preempted in do_task_dead(), between becoming TASK_DEAD and entering the scheduler explicitly, bad things happen: finish_task_switch() assumes that once the scheduler has switched away from a TASK_DEAD task, the task can never run again and its stack is no longer needed; but that assumption apparently doesn't hold if the dead task was preempted (the SM_PREEMPT case). This means that the scheduler ends up repeatedly dropping references on the dead task's stack, which can lead to use-after-free or double-free of the entire task stack; in other words, two tasks can end up running on the same stack, resulting in various kinds of memory corruption. (This does not just affect "recursively oopsing" tasks; it is enough to oops once during task exit, for example in a file_operations::release handler)

CVSS Metrics

Base Score: 7.8 (HIGH)

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Attack VectorLOCAL
Attack ComplexityLOW
Privileges RequiredLOW
User InteractionNONE
ScopeUNCHANGED
Confidentiality ImpactHIGH
Integrity ImpactHIGH
Availability ImpactHIGH

Source: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

Type: Secondary

Exploitability Score: 1.8

Impact Score: 5.9

Weaknesses

Source Type Description
[email protected] Primary
en CWE-787

Affected Products

Vendor Product Version Update Type
linux linux_kernel * <built-in method update of dict object at 0x7d23549fec80> Operating System
linux linux_kernel * <built-in method update of dict object at 0x7d2364d6a800> Operating System
linux linux_kernel * <built-in method update of dict object at 0x7d24245b8a40> Operating System
linux linux_kernel * <built-in method update of dict object at 0x7d23a52f6140> Operating System
linux linux_kernel * <built-in method update of dict object at 0x7d236440f5c0> Operating System
linux linux_kernel 7.1 <built-in method update of dict object at 0x7d236440c5c0> Operating System
linux linux_kernel 7.1 <built-in method update of dict object at 0x7d242450be00> Operating System
linux linux_kernel 7.1 <built-in method update of dict object at 0x7d2364d6adc0> Operating System

Affected Configurations

Operator: OR

Vulnerable CPE
Yes cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Yes cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Yes cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Yes cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Yes cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Yes cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:7.1:rc1:*:*:*:*:*:*
Yes cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:7.1:rc2:*:*:*:*:*:*
Yes cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:7.1:rc3:*:*:*:*:*:*

References

Notification
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