CVE-2026-97901 PUBLISHED

genetlink: pin family module during policy dump

Assigner: Linux
Reserved: 25.09.2026 Published: 25.09.2026 Updated: 25.09.2026

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

genetlink: pin family module during policy dump

The generic netlink controller's policy dump keeps pointers to the target family's operation and policy tables in its callback state. A dump may be split across multiple skbs and remain pending after the initial request.

Netlink pins the module which owns the dump callback, but in this case that is the controller's owner rather than the target family's owner. The target family can consequently be unregistered and its module unloaded while a policy dump is pending. Advancing the dump then dereferences policy memory from the unloaded module.

Take a reference to the target family's module when the dump starts. Drop it from the error and done paths. This matches the lifetime for which the dump context retains the family and policy pointers.

Product Status

Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from d07dcf9aadd6b2842b439e8668ff7ea2873f28d7 to 508387ad95ef9c13aa6431678c39763e882da2dc (excl.)
  • affected from d07dcf9aadd6b2842b439e8668ff7ea2873f28d7 to 6d8e653fcf1c90310797eeba8e5fafe9ccc3de9e (excl.)
  • affected from d07dcf9aadd6b2842b439e8668ff7ea2873f28d7 to 6a1094c34d176827b2b173e163dcc964a13af93f (excl.)
Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: affected
  • Version 5.8 is affected
  • unaffected from 0 to 5.8 (excl.)
  • unaffected from 6.18.53 to 6.18.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.2.7 to 7.2.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.3-rc3 to * (incl.)

References