Look up another CVE · open CVE-2026-98831 in the interactive tracker
CVE-2026-98831
of/overlay: don't leak fragment references when changeset init fails
Published 2026-10-18 (today) by the Linux kernel CNA. Subsystem drivers/of. Debian urgency: not yet assigned.
What to do, per Debian release
Debian's own status for CVE-2026-98831 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
| Release | Status | Version | What this means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Debian 12bookworm | vulnerable | 6.1.190-1 | No fix published anywhere yet, neither in Debian nor upstream for the series bookworm tracks. Watch the Debian tracker page for this CVE. Advisories for bookworm have historically landed a median of 23 days after publication. |
| Debian 13trixie | fixed | 6.12.113-1 | Update the kernel and reboot. Fixed in 6.12.113-1. A running kernel keeps the old code until the machine restarts. |
| Debian 14forky | fixed | 7.2.10-1 | Update the kernel and reboot. Fixed in 7.2.10-1. A running kernel keeps the old code until the machine restarts. |
| Debian unstablesid | fixed | 7.2.10-1 | Update the kernel and reboot. Fixed in 7.2.10-1. A running kernel keeps the old code until the machine restarts. |
The vulnerability
What the bug is
init_overlay_changeset() stores the number of initialized fragments in ovcs->count only on full success. When find_target() or the __symbols__ lookup fails partway through, the target and overlay references taken for the fragments initialized so far are never dropped: free_overlay_changeset() bounds its cleanup loop by ovcs->count, which is still 0. Store the running count on the error path so free_overlay_changeset() puts whatever was set up. The store is guarded by ovcs->fragments because on the allocation-failure path cnt still holds the counting pass total while there is no fragments array; everywhere else cnt only counts fully-initialized fragments.
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.
drivers/of/overlay.c
- What this is
- OPEN FIRMWARE AND FLATTENED DEVICE TREEMAINTAINERS section matched on drivers/of/ · devicetree@vger.kernel.org · Maintained
Check it on the machine
grep -wE 'CONFIG_OF|CONFIG_OF_OVERLAY' /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 does not build this code in 2 releases. It does build it in 2 releases, so the answer depends on which release the machine runs.
- bookworm, trixien
- forky, sidYnot built on amd64/amd64, amd64/cloud-amd64, amd64/rt-amd64, loong64/loong64, ppc64el/powerpc64le, ppc64el/powerpc64le-64k, riscv64/riscv64, s390x/s390x
- n
- not enabled on any flavour - this release does not build the code
- Y
- built in where it is built at all; some flavours do not build it
- Build switches
- CONFIG_OF, CONFIG_OF_OVERLAY
- 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
- 2026-10-18 (today)source
- CVSS
- no vector published, unrated
- Attack vector
- not published
- EPSS
- not scored
- CISA KEV
- not listedthe KEV catalogue
- Debian urgency
- not yet assignedsource
- Subsystem
- drivers/of
Upstream fixes
The versions the CNA records as introducing and fixing this, and the commit for each. source
| Introduced | Fixed in | Commit |
|---|---|---|
| 4.15 | 6.12.113 | 894573e2fdae |
| 4.15 | 6.18.56 | 7a46f1917b32 |
| 4.15 | 7.2.10 | 3a23fb158ba5 |
| 4.15 | 7.3 | 1d62f0f2bc7e |
Why the CNA scored it this way
The kernel CNA published no CVSS vector and no reasoning for CVE-2026-98831, 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.