CVE-2026-80778: futex/pi: Reject cross-mm private futex owners

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: 2026-09-04 · updated 2026-10-19

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: futex/pi: Reject cross-mm private futex owners A private futex key borrows the waiter's mm without taking an mm_users reference. Nevertheless, attach_to_pi_owner() currently accepts an owner from a different address space and copies the private key into the owner's PI state. When that owner exits, exit_pi_state_list() uses the saved key to find the hash bucket and acquires a reference to the waiter's private hash. If the last user of the waiter's mm exits concurrently, futex_hash_free() frees the hash while the owner still uses its bucket and reference. Prevent this by validating in attach_to_pi_owner() that, for private futexes, the owner mm and waiter mm are the same. Perform the check with the owner's pi_lock held and after validating owner::futex::state to serialize against a concurrent PI-state exit cleanup. [ tglx: Amended comment ]

Affected products

Linux kernel: 6.16 — fixed in 7.3

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 7.3. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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