Linux Distros Unpatched Vulnerability : CVE-2026-98507

critical Nessus Plugin ID 367014

Synopsis

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed with a vulnerability that the vendor indicates will not be patched.

Description

The Linux/Unix host has one or more packages installed that are impacted by a vulnerability without a vendor supplied patch available.

- mm/rmap: fix missing barrier between anon_vma init and vma->anon_vma publish On arm64 server, we find that a task trying to grab the anon_vma lock triggers hungtask. INFO: task main:2354726 blocked for more than 120 seconds. Tainted: G E 5.10.0-0021.aarch64 #1 echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs disables this message. task:main state:D stack: 0 pid:2354726 ppid:2350673 flags:0x00000a01 Call trace:
__switch_to+0x7c/0xbc __schedule+0x3b4/0x8a0 schedule+0x50/0xe0 rwsem_down_write_slowpath+0x3cc/0x6cc down_write+0x60/0x260 __anon_vma_prepare+0x6c/0x210 do_anonymous_page+0x258/0x660 handle_pte_fault+0x188/0x214 __handle_mm_fault+0x1b0/0x380 handle_mm_fault+0xf4/0x284 do_page_fault+0x19c/0x494 do_translation_fault+0xcc/0xf8 do_mem_abort+0x48/0xac el0_da+0x44/0x80 el0_sync_handler+0x88/0xb4 el0_sync+0x160/0x180 After analyzing the vmcore, we found the anon_vma->root->rwsem.count is -1. There is another anon_vma whose anon_vma->root->rwsem.count is 1, the anon_vma->root->rwsem.owner shows the lock is held, but the stack of the task shows the task doesn't hold the anon_vma lock. After adding more debugging info, we found __anon_vma_prepare() reuses anon_vma and triggers the UAF of anon_vma->root due to missing memory barrier, leading to locking and unlocking two different anon_vma->root, thus leading to an anon_vma will never be unlocked, and another anon_vma couldn't be locked anymore. This race requires two adjacent VMAs that are not merged but are anon_vma- compatible (e.g., they differ in VMA_ACCESS_FLAGS that can be changed by mprotect()). Two threads fault on each VMA concurrently, both calling __anon_vma_prepare() with only mmap_lock held for reading. THREAD A THREAD B __anon_vma_prepare __anon_vma_prepare find_mergeable_anon_vma() -> NULL anon_vma = anon_vma_alloc(); anon_vma->root = anon_vma; // the two stores may be reordered vma->anon_vma = anon_vma;
// finds A's anon_vma anon_vma = find_mergeable_anon_vma(vma); anon_vma_lock_write(anon_vma); // may still see the old root down_write(&anon_vma->root->rwsem); anon_vma_unlock_write(anon_vma); // see the new root, never unlock old up_write(&anon_vma->root->rwsem); thread A triggers page fault and calls
__anon_vma_prepare() to prepare anon_vma for the faulting vma. __anon_vma_prepare() allocates and initializes a new anon_vma, and then publishes it to the vma with a plain store. anon_vma_prepare() only requires the mmap_lock to be held for reading, so two threads can fault on adjacent VMAs at the same time.
While thread A publishes a new anon_vma, thread B could find the anon_vma via find_mergeable_anon_vma() and then locks anon_vma->root->rwsem. The store to anon_vma->root in anon_vma_alloc() and the store to vma->anon_vma can be reordered. The anon_vma_lock_write() and spin_lock() only provide acquire semantics, which do not prevent prior stores from being reordered after them. The release semantics of the corresponding spin_unlock() and anon_vma_unlock_write() come too late, the store to vma->anon_vma is already published before they take effect. As a result, thread B can observe the following order:
vma->anon_vma = anon_vma; anon_vma->root = anon_vma; The anon_vma slab is SLAB_TYPESAFE_BY_RCU, so a newly allocated anon_vma may reuse memory from a previously freed one. The constructor (anon_vma_ctor) does not reset anon_vma->root, and __put_anon_vma() doesn't clear it either, so the old root value persists until anon_vma_alloc() overwrites it. If that store isn't v ---truncated--- (CVE-2026-98507)

Note that Nessus relies on the presence of the package as reported by the vendor.

Solution

There is no known solution at this time.

Plugin Details

Severity: Critical

ID: 367014

File Name: unpatched_CVE_2026_98507.nasl

Version: 1.1

Type: Local

Agent: unix

Family: Misc.

Published: 10/18/2026

Updated: 10/18/2026

Supported Sensors: Frictionless Assessment Agent, Nessus Agent, Agentless Assessment, Tenable Cloud Security, Tenable Self-Hosted Container Security, Nessus

Risk Information

VPR

Risk Factor: Medium

Score: 4.9

Percentile: 58.42

CVSS v2

Risk Factor: High

Base Score: 7.5

Temporal Score: 6.4

Vector: CVSS2#AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:P/A:P

CVSS Score Source: CVE-2026-98507

CVSS v3

Risk Factor: Critical

Base Score: 9.8

Temporal Score: 9

Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Temporal Vector: CVSS:3.0/E:U/RL:U/RC:C

Vulnerability Information

CPE: cpe:/o:debian:debian_linux:12.0, p-cpe:/a:debian:debian_linux:linux

Required KB Items: Host/local_checks_enabled, Host/cpu, global_settings/vendor_unpatched, Host/OS/identifier

Exploit Ease: No known exploits are available

Vulnerability Publication Date: 10/18/2026

Reference Information

CVE: CVE-2026-98507

Detections

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