What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-98281: futex: Also allocate private hash on vfork()

• Severity: high (CVSS 7.8 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: futex: Also allocate private hash on vfork() As Jann demonstrated, it is entirely feasible to access the mm through vfork(). Therefore we need to allocate a private hash on vfork() as well as any other CLONE_VM user. Specifically, it must be avoided to have (private) futex waiters before allocating the private hash.

Affected products

• Linux kernel: from 6.18.33 before 6.18.54; from 7.0.10 before 7.1; 7.1 — fixed in 6.18.54, 7.1, 7.3

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 6.18.54, 7.1, 7.3. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/5468a4855b63b30156a79e5248e01bf1a2c18dd7
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b61b6f95d6722ddbbbd09e689fa41b55fd36f9a5
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/eecbafa8cabbc4d1482f6a5e2acc25a8f934681b

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