CVE-2026-74512 PUBLISHED

audit: fix potential use-after-free in audit_del_rule()

Assigner: Linux
Reserved: 15.08.2026 Published: 15.08.2026 Updated: 15.08.2026

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

audit: fix potential use-after-free in audit_del_rule()

audit_del_rule() destroys e->rule.exe via audit_remove_mark_rule() before unlinking the rule from RCU-visible filter lists and waiting for a grace period. Concurrent readers in audit_filter() and audit_filter_rules() still dereference e->rule.exe, while the fsnotify mark can be freed on an independent lifetime path. This creates a use-after-free window during rule deletion.

Fix this by unlinking the rule from the RCU-visible lists and invoking synchronize_rcu() before calling audit_remove_mark_rule() (and other rule removal helpers). This ensures that all existing RCU readers have exited the critical section before any underlying resources are destroyed.

Product Status

Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 34d99af52ad40bd498ba66970579a5bc1fb1a3bc to 45bf3df5b32e5a49953e7ceabc55f7dd85380e46 (excl.)
  • affected from 34d99af52ad40bd498ba66970579a5bc1fb1a3bc to 78bde7e9bd36eaae1b8e8cfcd47f12a34f301dbf (excl.)
  • affected from 34d99af52ad40bd498ba66970579a5bc1fb1a3bc to cae0dfed5d307b240bff71c3cf206652d1b6f215 (excl.)
  • affected from 34d99af52ad40bd498ba66970579a5bc1fb1a3bc to 5b8f46864f06d6dbacb7dcea52bc084dfd122638 (excl.)
  • affected from 34d99af52ad40bd498ba66970579a5bc1fb1a3bc to 246df90b5f1a8a6e6abbd2f058b029558720adec (excl.)
Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: affected
  • Version 4.3 is affected
  • unaffected from 0 to 4.3 (excl.)
  • unaffected from 6.6.151 to 6.6.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.12.103 to 6.12.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.18.44 to 6.18.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.1.8 to 7.1.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.2-rc6 to * (incl.)

References