data built 2026-10-19T13:16:53Z

Look up another CVE · open CVE-2026-68174 in the interactive tracker

CVE-2026-68174

tracing: Fix union collision of module and refcnt for dynamic events

EPSS 0.2%

Published 2026-08-10 (2 months ago) by the Linux kernel CNA. Subsystem kernel/trace. Debian urgency: unimportant.

What to do, per Debian release

Debian's own status for CVE-2026-68174 in every release this site tracks, and what each one means in practice. Every status below is the one the Debian Security Team publishes for this CVE. source

ReleaseStatus VersionWhat this means
Debian 12bookwormnot affected6.1.190-1Nothing to do. bookworm never shipped the vulnerable code.
Debian 13trixienot affected6.12.113-1Nothing to do. trixie never shipped the vulnerable code.
Debian 14forkyfixed7.1.6-1Update the kernel and reboot. Fixed in 7.1.6-1. A running kernel keeps the old code until the machine restarts.
Debian unstablesidfixed7.1.6-1Update the kernel and reboot. Fixed in 7.1.6-1. A running kernel keeps the old code until the machine restarts.

The vulnerability

What the bug is

In 'struct trace_event_call', the 'module' pointer and the 'refcnt' atomic variable share the same memory space in a union. For dynamic events, the union member is 'refcnt', which acts as an active reference counter. When a dynamic event (such as kprobe, uprobe, fprobe, eprobe, or wprobe) has a non-zero reference count (e.g. due to active event triggers or perf attachments), its 'call->module' evaluates to a small non-zero integer instead of NULL. When filtering or setting events for a specific module (e.g., writing ':mod:<module>' to 'set_event'), the code in '__ftrace_set_clr_event_nolock()' and 'update_event_fields()' reads 'call->module' directly without checking whether the event is dynamic. This causes the kernel to treat the small integer (refcnt) as a 'struct module' pointer, leading to a NULL/invalid pointer dereference (Oops) when dereferencing the module name. Fix this by ensuring that the 'TRACE_EVENT_FL_DYNAMIC' flag is checked before treating 'call->module' as a valid pointer in these code paths.

Where it lives

The fix touches these files. If the subsystem is one you do not use, the practical exposure is lower, though the package is still the vulnerable one.

kernel/trace/trace_events.c

What this is
TRACINGMAINTAINERS section matched on kernel/trace/ · linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org · Maintained

Check it on the machine

grep -wE 'CONFIG_EVENT_TRACING|CONFIG_FUNCTION_TRACER|CONFIG_RETHOOK|CONFIG_RING_BUFFER|CONFIG_TRACEPOINTS|CONFIG_TRACE_CLOCK|CONFIG_TRACING' /boot/config-$(uname -r)

Reads the booted kernel's own configuration, on the machine and nowhere else. =y is built in, =m is a module, and an is not set line means the code is not there.

Show whether Debian builds this, per release

Debian builds this, but not on every flavour. At least one release below builds the code on some of its kernel flavours and not on others, so the answer depends on the architecture and flavour installed.

  • bookwormYnot built on arm64/arm64, arm64/cloud-arm64, arm64/rt/arm64, armhf/armmp, armhf/armmp-lpae, armhf/rt/armmp, ppc64el/powerpc64le
  • trixieYnot built on arm64/arm64, arm64/arm64-16k, arm64/cloud-arm64, arm64/rt/arm64, armel/rpi, armhf/armmp, armhf/armmp-lpae, armhf/rt/armmp
  • forky, sidYnot built on arm64/arm64, arm64/arm64-16k, arm64/cloud-arm64, arm64/rt-arm64, armhf/armmp, armhf/armmp-lpae
Y
built in where it is built at all; some flavours do not build it
Build switches
CONFIG_EVENT_TRACING, CONFIG_FUNCTION_TRACER, CONFIG_RETHOOK, CONFIG_RING_BUFFER, CONFIG_TRACEPOINTS, CONFIG_TRACE_CLOCK, CONFIG_TRACING
Reads as
all on means the file is compiled; any one off means it is not.

From the configuration Debian publishes for every kernel flavour it builds. It covers only the architectures Debian ships a linux-config package for, and nothing about a kernel you built yourself. Debian's own status above stays authoritative about the source package.MAINTAINERS kbuild Makefiles Debian linux-config packages

Signals

Published
2026-08-10 (2 months ago)source
CVSS
no vector published, unrated
Attack vector
not published
EPSS
0.20%, higher than 8.9% of all CVEssource
CISA KEV
not listedthe KEV catalogue
Debian urgency
unimportantsource
Subsystem
kernel/trace

Upstream fixes

The versions the CNA records as introducing and fixing this, and the commit for each. source

IntroducedFixed inCommit
6.146.18.42b6a4575f2292
6.147.1.643a23dfe0024
6.147.2b4eb07bde606

Why the CNA scored it this way

The kernel CNA published no CVSS vector and no reasoning for CVE-2026-68174, which is why it is shown as unrated rather than given an invented score. 6,405 of the 20,413 CVEs here carry reasoning; this is not one of them.