What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-68357: watchdog: pretimeout: Fix UAF in watchdog_unregister_governor()

• Severity: unknown
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2026-08-10 · updated 2026-08-19

Description

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.

Affected products

• Linux kernel: 4.9 — fixed in 7.2

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 7.2. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/0ca252720f0e38411cfec3431db9bb1aed0a412c
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2e47b91b9b4020fcc01def14d6b6556d66074cf4
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/472ec1e34ff0bb26379805cae808f658cce58c35
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/7362ba0f9c96ac3ad6a2ca3995bd9fc9a28a8661
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/7993d626983cc58fbde9607333cfd2d57725c197
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/7a2ee3ec6f208307eca1119a343c7b5d39c03708
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/7d1658b066de30f4b23afc14814d22416a971e6e
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b9ae33faa96bdec6bc60e4c5f8f53786182e4207

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