Copyright © 2012 Red Hat, Inc. All rights reserved. Moderate 2026-10-18T00:00:00 kernel: thunderbolt: Fix KASAN reported use-after-free when request is canceled 4.7 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H CWE-825

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: thunderbolt: Fix KASAN reported use-after-free when request is canceled Alan reported that when doing stress testing sometimes KASAN notices use-after-free during control channel operation (stripped down keeping the relevant parts): BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in tb_cfg_request_sync+0x240/0x250 [thunderbolt] Read of size 24 at addr ffff88811067f290 by task kworker/u40:2/1760 <TASK> tb_cfg_request_sync+0x240/0x250 [thunderbolt] tb_cfg_read_raw+0x367/0x510 [thunderbolt] tb_cfg_read+0xec/0x240 [thunderbolt] tb_port_get_link_generation+0x258/0x420 [thunderbolt] tb_usb3_consumed_bandwidth+0x1c1/0x2c0 [thunderbolt] tb_tunnel_consumed_bandwidth+0xfd/0x910 [thunderbolt] tb_available_bandwidth+0x5f2/0xeb0 [thunderbolt] tb_recalc_estimated_bandwidth+0x2a0/0x1bc0 [thunderbolt] tb_handle_dp_bandwidth_request+0x1897/0x5e20 [thunderbolt] process_one_work+0x675/0x1230 worker_thread+0x5e6/0xf70 kthread+0x365/0x470 ret_from_fork+0x54d/0x710 ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30 </TASK> Allocated by task 1760: __kmalloc_cache_noprof+0x1ee/0x550 tb_cfg_read_raw+0x1d3/0x510 [thunderbolt] tb_cfg_read+0xec/0x240 [thunderbolt] tb_port_get_link_generation+0x258/0x420 [thunderbolt] tb_usb3_consumed_bandwidth+0x1c1/0x2c0 [thunderbolt] tb_tunnel_consumed_bandwidth+0xfd/0x910 [thunderbolt] tb_available_bandwidth+0x5f2/0xeb0 [thunderbolt] tb_recalc_estimated_bandwidth+0x2a0/0x1bc0 [thunderbolt] tb_handle_dp_bandwidth_request+0x1897/0x5e20 [thunderbolt] process_one_work+0x675/0x1230 worker_thread+0x5e6/0xf70 kthread+0x365/0x470 ret_from_fork+0x54d/0x710 ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30 Freed by task 926: kfree+0x18f/0x4a0 tb_cfg_request_put+0xb7/0xe0 [thunderbolt] tb_cfg_request_work+0x82/0x120 [thunderbolt] process_one_work+0x675/0x1230 worker_thread+0x5e6/0xf70 kthread+0x365/0x470 ret_from_fork+0x54d/0x710 ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30 Second to last potentially related work creation: __queue_work+0x575/0xd00 queue_work_on+0x77/0x80 tb_cfg_request_cancel+0xc7/0x260 [thunderbolt] tb_cfg_request_sync+0x1f6/0x250 [thunderbolt] tb_cfg_read_raw+0x367/0x510 [thunderbolt] tb_cfg_read+0xec/0x240 [thunderbolt] tb_port_get_link_generation+0x258/0x420 [thunderbolt] tb_usb3_consumed_bandwidth+0x1c1/0x2c0 [thunderbolt] tb_tunnel_consumed_bandwidth+0xfd/0x910 [thunderbolt] tb_available_bandwidth+0x5f2/0xeb0 [thunderbolt] tb_recalc_estimated_bandwidth+0x2a0/0x1bc0 [thunderbolt] tb_handle_dp_bandwidth_request+0x1897/0x5e20 [thunderbolt] process_one_work+0x675/0x1230 worker_thread+0x5e6/0xf70 kthread+0x365/0x470 ret_from_fork+0x54d/0x710 ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30 The last stack trace is helpful because it shows that we are cancelling a request and looking at tb_cfg_request_cancel() what might happen is that tb_cfg_request_work() completes right before tb_cfg_request_cancel() starts and because of this it will call schedule_work() queueing the same work to run again. However, it is already removed from the request_queue and reference count is dropped so when tb_cfg_request_work() triggers again it will access memory that is already released. Fix this so that we first make sure a cancelled request is not handed away from tb_cfg_request_find() or scheduled to run. Then instead of relying on the worker to clean up the request we will do it in tb_cfg_request_cancel() after the work is canceled from running. Make tb_cfg_request_dequeue() release the request only if it was actually removed from the queue.

A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's Thunderbolt driver. When a control channel request is canceled, a race condition can cause the request to be rescheduled after its memory has already been freed, resulting in a use-after-free vulnerability. A local attacker could exploit this flaw to cause a Denial of Service (DoS) via a system crash or potentially corrupt kernel memory.

This vulnerability is rated as having a Moderate impact for Red Hat Enterprise Linux because exploitation is confined to local authenticated users, requires high race timing complexity, and is limited to hardware configurations utilizing Thunderbolt or USB4 controllers. Systems without active Thunderbolt hardware or peripherals cannot trigger this condition. Successful exploitation primarily leads to a kernel crash and system denial of service, without granting direct remote code execution. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 Fix deferred kernel Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Not affected kernel Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Fix deferred kernel Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Fix deferred kernel-rt Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Fix deferred kernel Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Fix deferred kernel-rt Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 Fix deferred kernel Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 Fix deferred kernel-rt Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 Fix deferred openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-8 Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 Fix deferred openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-9 Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 5 Fix deferred openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-9 https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-98694 https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-98694 https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/security/vulns.git/plain/cve/published/2026/CVE-2026-98694.mbox