CVE-2026-68357 PUBLISHED

watchdog: pretimeout: Fix UAF in watchdog_unregister_governor()

Assigner: Linux
Reserved: 30.07.2026 Published: 10.08.2026 Updated: 10.08.2026

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

watchdog: pretimeout: Fix UAF in watchdog_unregister_governor()

When a watchdog governor is unregistered, it updates existing watchdog devices that were using this governor by falling back to default_gov.

If the governor being unregistered is currently set as default_gov, the default_gov is never cleared. This leads to 2 use-after-free issues: 1. New watchdog devices registered after this point will inherit the dangling default_gov. 2. Existing watchdog devices using the unregistered governor will have their wdd->gov reassigned to the dangling default_gov.

Fix the UAF by clearing default_gov if it matches the governor being unregistered.

Product Status

Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from da0d12ff2b829a35e9921918e925d79497b82bef to 2e47b91b9b4020fcc01def14d6b6556d66074cf4 (excl.)
  • affected from da0d12ff2b829a35e9921918e925d79497b82bef to 0ca252720f0e38411cfec3431db9bb1aed0a412c (excl.)
  • affected from da0d12ff2b829a35e9921918e925d79497b82bef to 7d1658b066de30f4b23afc14814d22416a971e6e (excl.)
  • affected from da0d12ff2b829a35e9921918e925d79497b82bef to 7993d626983cc58fbde9607333cfd2d57725c197 (excl.)
  • affected from da0d12ff2b829a35e9921918e925d79497b82bef to 7362ba0f9c96ac3ad6a2ca3995bd9fc9a28a8661 (excl.)
Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: affected
  • Version 4.9 is affected
  • unaffected from 0 to 4.9 (excl.)
  • unaffected from 6.6.148 to 6.6.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.12.101 to 6.12.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.18.42 to 6.18.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.1.6 to 7.1.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.2-rc5 to * (incl.)

References