CVE-2026-98496 PUBLISHED

net: airoha: npu: cancel wdt_work after releasing the WDT IRQ

Assigner: Linux
Reserved: 25.09.2026 Published: 18.10.2026 Updated: 18.10.2026

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

net: airoha: npu: cancel wdt_work after releasing the WDT IRQ

airoha_npu_remove() calls cancel_work_sync() on each core's wdt_work, but the watchdog IRQ that queues it is requested with devm_request_irq() and is freed only after .remove() returns. airoha_npu_wdt_handler() can therefore schedule_work() again once the cancel has returned. struct airoha_npu, which contains the work, is devm_kzalloc()'d and is freed in that same unwind, so the late work dereferences freed memory.

Register the work with devm_work_autocancel() before devm_request_irq() and drop .remove(). Devres runs in reverse order, so the IRQ is freed before cancel_work_sync(), including when probe fails. A cancel left in .remove() cannot get that order. Initializing the work first also stops a pending watchdog interrupt from queuing an uninitialized work item. Probe currently calls INIT_WORK() only after devm_request_irq().

This issue was identified during our ongoing static-analysis research while reviewing kernel code.

Product Status

Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 23290c7bc190def4e1ca61610992d9b7c32e33f3 to aca91d8fa0ecbc990ebf9a688c684dda78a43c00 (excl.)
  • affected from 23290c7bc190def4e1ca61610992d9b7c32e33f3 to da9d42531f3a6dfea2e9c775b62a46185dbf280a (excl.)
  • affected from 23290c7bc190def4e1ca61610992d9b7c32e33f3 to 4bdee8060d1e4581624e68fbd369b1afb14df4bc (excl.)
Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: affected
  • Version 6.15 is affected
  • unaffected from 0 to 6.15 (excl.)
  • unaffected from 6.18.55 to 6.18.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.2.9 to 7.2.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.3-rc5 to * (incl.)

References