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Fencer Vulns
medium 4.7

CVE-2026-43121 json

io_uring/zcrx: fix user_ref race between scrub and refill paths

published 2026-05-06 6 mo ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2026-27682

cvss
4.7
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.1%
EPSS 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 1%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

io_uring/zcrx: fix user_ref race between scrub and refill paths

The io_zcrx_put_niov_uref() function uses a non-atomic check-then-decrement pattern (atomic_read followed by separate atomic_dec) to manipulate user_refs. This is serialized against other callers by rq_lock, but io_zcrx_scrub() modifies the same counter with atomic_xchg() WITHOUT holding rq_lock.

On SMP systems, the following race exists:

CPU0 (refill, holds rq_lock) CPU1 (scrub, no rq_lock) put_niov_uref: atomic_read(uref) - 1 // window opens atomic_xchg(uref, 0) - 1 return_niov_freelist(niov) [PUSH #1] // window closes atomic_dec(uref) - wraps to -1 returns true return_niov(niov) return_niov_freelist(niov) [PUSH #2: DOUBLE-FREE]

The same niov is pushed to the freelist twice, causing free_count to exceed nr_iovs. Subsequent freelist pushes then perform an out-of-bounds write (a u32 value) past the kvmalloc'd freelist array into the adjacent slab object.

Fix this by replacing the non-atomic read-then-dec in io_zcrx_put_niov_uref() with an atomic_try_cmpxchg loop that atomically tests and decrements user_refs. This makes the operation safe against concurrent atomic_xchg from scrub without requiring scrub to acquire rq_lock.

[pavel: removed a warning and a comment]

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.18.16, 6.19.6, 7.0
  • linux Debian 14 6.19.6-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-43121

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-2026-43121 updated

kernel: io_uring/zcrx: fix user_ref race between scrub and refill paths

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more 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 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel
    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

0.11% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 1% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 4.7 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-362 Concurrent Execution using Shared Resource with Improper Synchronization
Technology feeds

References

Sources

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