CVE-2026-98521 json
drm/i915: fix incorrect RCU teardown order
published 24d ago modified 23d ago also EUVD-2026-103761
- cvss
- —
- not scored
- cisa kev
- Not listed
- not in CISA's catalog
- epss
- 0.2%
- EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 12%
- public exploits
- 0
- none known
Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
drm/i915: fix incorrect RCU teardown order
i915_gem_busy_ioctl uses dma_resv_for_each_fence_unlocked() to iterate over the fences in an GEM object without holding a reference but only the RCU read side lock.
What can happen here is that the GEM object is destroyed concurrently while i915_gem_busy_ioctl is still running. This won't free the GEM objects memory, but still drops all the dma_fence references.
Now when dma_resv_for_each_fence_unlocked() sees a destroyed dma_fence it assumes that a new fence list was installed and re-starts the loop.
But in the case of a destroyed GEM object a new fence list is never installed, only the old one freed and therefore the iteration never finishes resulting in an endless loop.
The solution is to drop the fence references only after the RCU grace period.
The fixes tag is not necessary the patch introducing the problem, but the one making it so worse that we need to address it.
This problem was pointed out by Sashiko-bot.
(cherry picked from commit 5113479556025093bf8133bb2dcaa33be2d50921)
Patch / fix
- Linux Linux 7.3
- linux Debian 12 6.1.190-1
- linux Debian 13 6.12.113-1
- linux Debian 14 7.2.9-1
- linux-6.12 Debian 12 6.12.113-1~deb12u1
debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-98521
- linux Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-42.42
- linux-aws Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1016.17
- linux-gcp Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1016.18
- linux-ibm Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1017.17
- linux-riscv Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-42.42.1
- linux-oracle Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1015.16
- linux-hwe-7.0 Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 7.0.0-42.42~24.04.1
- linux-oem-7.0 Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1017.17
ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2026-98521
Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0
- kernel-source Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-159998.55.1
- kernel-default Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-159998.55.1
- kernel-kvmsmall Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-159998.55.1
- kernel-default-base Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-159998.55.1.159998.21.42
- kernel-64kb SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.90.1
- kernel-syms SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.90.1
- kernel-azure SLE Module for Public Cloud 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.90.1
- kernel-source SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP7, SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.90.1
suse advisories SUSE-SU-2026:24550-1SUSE-SU-2026:5091-1
- kernel Azure Linux 3.0 6.6.159.1-1
azure linux advisories AZL-109427
Azure Linux vulnerability data, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, from https://github.com/microsoft/AzureLinuxVulnerabilityData via OSV, under the MIT licence; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. MIT
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/4d4ca84213327da1f84ef7af3946dea6b14c5d88 commit
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/c53db9cc245219af6b528ca022a17ebfa91d80ba commit
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/b12e041aedcf9fa77c6002a49f07eb20d0521b86 commit
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/cc890d3f1b15bf6481dc7270fba0b4fbba572813 commit
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/2dd0190e397ec6468095fd3e80e79276a7361449 commit
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/d2da6696e0c4e60414706e607029d0bb0330c67e commit
Is CVE-2026-98521 in your stack? Fencer shows which of your repositories are affected as soon as an advisory lands, and opens the fix as a pull request.
Check with FencerVendor advisories
What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.
red hat product security vex CVE-2026-98521 updated cvss 5.5
kernel: drm/i915: fix incorrect RCU teardown order
-
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 moreaffected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
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Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-9 Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 5 openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-9affected: no fix available “Fix deferred”
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Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-8not affected: vulnerable code not present
Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf
Exploit prediction
0.22% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 12% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-11).
Affected products
- Linux Linux
Classification
- Technology feeds
References
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/4d4ca84213327da1f84ef7af3946dea6b14c5d88
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/c53db9cc245219af6b528ca022a17ebfa91d80ba
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/b12e041aedcf9fa77c6002a49f07eb20d0521b86
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/cc890d3f1b15bf6481dc7270fba0b4fbba572813
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/2dd0190e397ec6468095fd3e80e79276a7361449
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/d2da6696e0c4e60414706e607029d0bb0330c67e
Sources
- CVE List CVE-2026-98521
- NVD CVE-2026-98521
Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.