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CVE-2026-99103 json

workqueue: Fix unbound pool lifetime for pending pwqs

published 14d ago modified 12d ago also EUVD-2026-112003

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 6%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

workqueue: Fix unbound pool lifetime for pending pwqs

KASAN reports a use-after-free of an unbound worker_pool in node_activate_pending_pwq():

BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in _raw_spin_trylock+0x6d/0x120 Read of size 4 at addr ffff8880089ce000 by task kworker/u22:0/318

CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 318 Comm: kworker/u22:0 Not tainted 7.2.0 #1 PREEMPT(lazy) Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.15.0-1 04/01/2014 Workqueue: 0x0 (flush-8:0) Call Trace: <TASK> dump_stack_lvl+0x53/0x70 print_report+0xce/0x610 kasan_report+0xce/0x100 _raw_spin_trylock+0x6d/0x120 pwq_dec_nr_in_flight+0x4b4/0xcb0 process_one_work+0x921/0x11a0 worker_thread+0x4d0/0xd20 kthread+0x2de/0x3c0 ret_from_fork+0x3aa/0x620 ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30 </TASK>

Allocated by task 311: alloc_pwq+0x439/0xca0 apply_wqattrs_prepare+0x75e/0xd10 apply_workqueue_attrs_locked+0x44/0xa0 wq_nice_store+0x350/0x450

Freed by task 0: kfree+0x127/0x3b0 rcu_core+0x523/0x1780 handle_softirqs+0x1b3/0x610

Last potentially related work creation: put_unbound_pool+0x3f3/0x7d0 pwq_release_workfn+0x494/0x8e0 kthread_worker_fn+0x1ff/0x790

Canceling the last inactive work skips pwq_dec_nr_active(), so an empty pwq can remain on pending_pwqs when its refcnt reaches zero. pwq_release_workfn() currently puts the pool before removing that pwq. If this drops the last pool reference, the pool can be RCU-freed while the pwq remains reachable, and node_activate_pending_pwq() may trylock the freed pool->lock.

Remove the pwq from pending_pwqs before putting the pool.

Patch / fix

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Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2026-99103 updated cvss 4.7

kernel: workqueue: Fix unbound pool lifetime for pending pwqs

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +82 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-9
    affected: no fix available “Fix deferred”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 kernel-rt, kernel-rt-selftests-internal Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-8
    not 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

0.17% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 6% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-11).

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Technology feeds

References

Sources

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