CVE-2026-98809 PUBLISHED

Bluetooth: hci_sync: don't drain cmd_sync backlog on unregister

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

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

Bluetooth: hci_sync: don't drain cmd_sync backlog on unregister

hci_unregister_dev() disables cmd_work and cmd_timer, then calls hci_cmd_sync_clear(), whose cancel_work_sync() waits for hci_cmd_sync_work() to return. That worker dequeues and runs every entry on cmd_sync_work_list. With cmd_work disabled nothing reaches the controller, so each queued HCI command waits the full HCI_CMD_TIMEOUT (2s).

The backlog has no bound. Userspace can keep queuing MGMT commands such as MGMT_OP_GET_CLOCK_INFO against a controller that doesn't answer. Closing /dev/vhci then blocks in vhci_release() for backlog * 2s:

INFO: task syz-executor:5749 blocked for more than 143 seconds. cancel_work_sync hci_cmd_sync_clear hci_unregister_dev vhci_release

In a local reproduction the backlog held more than 5000 entries, which comes to hours of hang.

Stop the worker from taking new entries once HCI_UNREGISTER is set, and wake any request still waiting with -ENODEV before cancelling the work. The entries left over are destroyed with -ECANCELED by the existing sweep in hci_cmd_sync_clear(). They stay on the list until the work has stopped, so hci_cmd_sync_dequeue() and friends still see them. A callback already running may still issue another command, which delays unregister by at most one timeout per remaining command, not by the whole backlog.

Product Status

Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 008ee9eb8a11bcabf12c91771dd4f470b082bd44 to 143bde97c4101ae68eb656c87e620c45b07a3090 (excl.)
  • affected from 008ee9eb8a11bcabf12c91771dd4f470b082bd44 to 7f16443a30f4e86d84ae4faf057d333b41ddb757 (excl.)
  • affected from 008ee9eb8a11bcabf12c91771dd4f470b082bd44 to e8ba8c9c74d1035042cdf6cb5adf8f59b9b1271c (excl.)
  • affected from 008ee9eb8a11bcabf12c91771dd4f470b082bd44 to b1f24c1ab52345e810c42a1a81286cb5a7c92252 (excl.)
Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: affected
  • Version 5.17 is affected
  • unaffected from 0 to 5.17 (excl.)
  • unaffected from 6.12.113 to 6.12.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.18.56 to 6.18.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.2.10 to 7.2.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.3-rc6 to * (incl.)

References