What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-98252: RDMA/core: fix refcount bug in iwpm_get_nlmsg_request()

• Severity: high (CVSS 7.0 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.1% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2026-10-06 · updated 2026-10-19

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: RDMA/core: fix refcount bug in iwpm_get_nlmsg_request() iwpm_get_nlmsg_request() initializes refcount _after_ list_add_tail() making it accessible to global list where another CPU can kref_get() on nlmsg_request causing a refcount "addition on 0" bug. Fix this by initializing kref _before_ list_add_tail() so refcount for nlmsg_request can be incremented/decremented normally. In addition, also initialize every field before list_add_tail().

Affected products

• Linux kernel: 3.16 — fixed in 7.3

How to fix

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

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/117871cdb8927542abd7b65ce5995bf0265a8c05
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2fbac8a56004b6ce54fbfe845d4b25da6e0b55e8
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/33fb59da49c4c3f5c2ec9f9d4447a56857a02c02
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/52c13c63bb3662c108244e7447055e30bf40244e
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/88e429a4e9bac3d2138011c5ca06254331f2587f
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/8a91609032d47e77bcb37bc8f6e88d89340d2709
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ce8a379598bd4058081416abea4279fd05a95374
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/e15eb536be4f646ce683d2867572b2200be877f7

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