CVE-2026-99226 json
keys: Avoid the owner account dereference in named keyring lookup
published 2026-11-02 6 d ago modified 2026-11-03 5 d ago also EUVD-2026-115268
- 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 7%
- public exploits
- 0
- none known
Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
keys: Avoid the owner account dereference in named keyring lookup
Named keyring lookup must keep the storage containing the owner UID alive through the namespace mapping check. find_keyring_by_name() reads keyring->user->uid under keyring_name_lock, but that lock protects the keyring's name entry and allocation, not its separate key_user.
A named session-keyring join can overlap a privileged KEYCTL_CHOWN on another CPU. If the keyring holds the last reference to its old dynamic key_user and the ownership transfer succeeds, the following ordering is possible:
Named join Chown find_keyring_by_name() keyctl_chown_key() read_lock(keyring_name_lock) down_write(key->sem) load old keyring->user replace key->user and key->uid up_write(key->sem) key_put(key) key_user_put(old user): free read old user->uid read_unlock(keyring_name_lock)
Chown neither takes keyring_name_lock nor key_session_mutex, so it can free the old account between the pointer load and the UID read. The lookup then reads freed memory even though the keyring itself is alive.
Use keyring->uid for the mapping check. key_alloc() initializes this inline owner UID and keyctl_chown_key() updates it on chown. The existing name lock keeps its containing keyring allocated throughout the check, so lookup no longer depends on the account's lifetime. This also matches the owner UID used by the permission check.
KASAN report as below:
BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in find_keyring_by_name+0x577/0x5d0 Read of size 4 at addr ffff8881128ae2ec by task keycase/500
Patch / fix
- Linux Linux 5.10.273, 5.15.224, 6.1.191, 6.6.161, 6.12.115, 6.18.60, 7.2.14, 7.3.1, 7.4-rc1
- linux Debian 13 6.12.115-1
- linux Debian 14 7.2.14-1
debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-99226
- kernel Azure Linux 3.0 6.6.161.1-1
azure linux advisories AZL-112556
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/77249d4b1bb5ad43552b7023c4a0978937aa7a56 commit
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/0b865fa477d94ac96c26848aab1fd176397de3f6 commit
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/6763329f673d261641c79212abf773af77b2c922 commit
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/aa03c8fb4334f14d218020f7431debf2b7766865 commit
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/c9664f780f861dd9f11f120c7a03ed0993671ebb commit
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/b0830a26e2c3008a6e21863126b4a0e68b2761cd commit
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/5c6a9512887a6cc694d594d9c0b57c0841d215b5 commit
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/40b12b93ae4ab9e22c3d571e9b09fd08afad53f6 commit
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/51409aaa01f8602552c336009fd22b226b0cdf1d commit
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-2026-99226 updated cvss 5.5
kernel: kernel: Denial of Service via use-after-free in named keyring lookup
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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 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 Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-8, openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-9 Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 5 openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-9, openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-10affected: no fix available “Fix deferred”
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
0.18% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 7% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).
Affected products
- Linux Linux
Classification
- Technology feeds
References
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/77249d4b1bb5ad43552b7023c4a0978937aa7a56
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/0b865fa477d94ac96c26848aab1fd176397de3f6
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/6763329f673d261641c79212abf773af77b2c922
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/aa03c8fb4334f14d218020f7431debf2b7766865
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/c9664f780f861dd9f11f120c7a03ed0993671ebb
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/b0830a26e2c3008a6e21863126b4a0e68b2761cd
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/5c6a9512887a6cc694d594d9c0b57c0841d215b5
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/40b12b93ae4ab9e22c3d571e9b09fd08afad53f6
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/51409aaa01f8602552c336009fd22b226b0cdf1d
Sources
- CVE List CVE-2026-99226
- NVD CVE-2026-99226
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