Linux Kernel up to 7.2.0 KCOV kcov_remote_start race condition

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7.8	$0-$5k	0.46+

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability was found in Linux Kernel up to 7.2.0. It has been classified as very critical. Affected by this vulnerability is the function kcov_remote_start of the component KCOV. The manipulation leads to race condition. This vulnerability is traded as CVE-2026-80916. An attack has to be approached locally. There is no exploit available. Upgrading the affected component is recommended.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Linux Kernel up to 7.2.0 and classified as very critical. This issue affects the function kcov_remote_start of the component KCOV. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a race condition vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-362. The product contains a code sequence that can run concurrently with other code, and the code sequence requires temporary, exclusive access to a shared resource, but a timing window exists in which the shared resource can be modified by another code sequence that is operating concurrently. Impacted is confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: kcov: fix data corruption and race conditions on PREEMPT_RT syzbot is reporting KCOV state corruption on PREEMPT_RT kernels, for the temporary storage used for saving/restoring remote KCOV state is currently allocated as the per-CPU area. On PREEMPT_RT kernels, softirq handlers run as preemptible task threads (e.g., ksoftirqd). If a softirq context preempts a task running a remote KCOV session, it safely saves the task's state into the per-CPU area. However, if that softirq thread is subsequently preempted by a higher- priority softirq thread on the same CPU, the second softirq will overwrite the same per-CPU area, permanently destroying the original task's KCOV state. Fix this data corruption by moving the temporary storage from the per-CPU area to the per-thread area. Since each softirq thread now owns its own task context, nested softirq preemption no longer causes data overwrites. Note that while the temporary storage is now on a per-thread basis, the per-CPU kcov_percpu_data.lock must be retained, for we need to ensure that kcov_remote_start() and kcov_remote_stop() operate atomically without racing against asynchronous interrupts that manipulate the current task's KCOV state. It is likely that GFP_KERNEL allocation by vmalloc_node() in kcov_init() has already called panic() before returning NULL, for there will be no OOM-killable userspace processes when __init function of built-in module runs. But this patch also fixes crashing the kernel when vmalloc_node() in kcov_init() returned NULL, for kcov_init() left per-CPU irq_area == NULL but kcov_remote_start() depends on per-CPU irq_area != NULL, resulting in (1) doing vmalloc() in kcov_remote_start() despite !in_task() context (2) out-of-array-bounds access if (1) succeeded but kcov->remote_size < CONFIG_KCOV_IRQ_AREA_SIZE (3) always leak memory allocated by (1), eventually killing all OOM-killable userspace processes problems.

It is possible to read the advisory at git.kernel.org. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2026-80916 since 08/26/2026. The exploitation is known to be easy. Attacking locally is a requirement. Additional levels of successful authentication are needed for exploitation. Technical details of the vulnerability are known, but there is no available exploit. The pricing for an exploit might be around USD $0-$5k at the moment (estimation calculated on 09/09/2026).

Upgrading to version 5.10.269, 5.15.220, 6.1.185, 6.6.154, 6.12.106, 6.18.47, 7.1.11, 7.2.1 or 7.3-rc1 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch ef7048d8a614c5f5a9b20513a5428101a744514e/8ed3ddf23d39bf5338406bd9f8863d44748cf6ce/5dc59fc959b2b5742985d7ef24bccd1868217dc2/a2fb8222cde23b0001812ed3acb7c0ea36dd94e2/18799e858b407bf355383c9dd6c06477aa437134/e11f5b48c82703242a3be7a7ae4b4940b4cb4610/22670d1552fe155822b2abf91f920925f7d067b4/f8c9a3ec36b4ee3d4701b9be08f40e7bfbf89761/2eed77fdcb0cc48e8eccb2bcd4b7f2c6d650e84c is able to eliminate this problem. The best possible mitigation is suggested to be upgrading to the latest version.

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Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 5.10.268
• 5.15.219
• 6.1.184
• 6.6.153
• 6.12.105
• 6.18.0
• 6.18.1
• 6.18.2
• 6.18.3
• 6.18.4
• 6.18.5
• 6.18.6
• 6.18.7
• 6.18.8
• 6.18.9
• 6.18.10
• 6.18.11
• 6.18.12
• 6.18.13
• 6.18.14
• 6.18.15
• 6.18.16
• 6.18.17
• 6.18.18
• 6.18.19
• 6.18.20
• 6.18.21
• 6.18.22
• 6.18.23
• 6.18.24
• 6.18.25
• 6.18.26
• 6.18.27
• 6.18.28
• 6.18.29
• 6.18.30
• 6.18.31
• 6.18.32
• 6.18.33
• 6.18.34
• 6.18.35
• 6.18.36
• 6.18.37
• 6.18.38
• 6.18.39
• 6.18.40
• 6.18.41
• 6.18.42
• 6.18.43
• 6.18.44
• 6.18.45
• 6.18.46
• 7.0
• 7.1
• 7.1.0
• 7.1.1
• 7.1.2
• 7.1.3
• 7.1.4
• 7.1.5
• 7.1.6
• 7.1.7
• 7.1.8
• 7.1.9
• 7.1.10
• 7.2.0

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

CPE 2.3info

• 🔒
• 🔒
• 🔒

CPE 2.2info

• 🔒
• 🔒
• 🔒

CVSSv4info

VulDB Vector: 🔒
VulDB Reliability: 🔍

CVSSv3info

VulDB Meta Base Score: 8.2
VulDB Meta Temp Score: 7.8

VulDB Base Score: 8.2
VulDB Temp Score: 7.8
VulDB Vector: 🔒
VulDB Reliability: 🔍

CVSSv2info

AV	AC	Au	C	I	A
💳	💳	💳	💳	💳	💳
💳	💳	💳	💳	💳	💳
💳	💳	💳	💳	💳	💳

Vector	Complexity	Authentication	Confidentiality	Integrity	Availability
Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock
Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock
Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock

VulDB Base Score: 🔒
VulDB Temp Score: 🔒
VulDB Reliability: 🔍

Exploitinginfo

Class: Race condition
CWE: CWE-362
CAPEC: 🔒
ATT&CK: 🔒

Physical: Partially
Local: Yes
Remote: No

Availability: 🔒
Status: Not defined
Price Prediction: 🔍
Current Price Estimation: 🔒

0-Day	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock
Today	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock

Threat Intelligenceinfo

Interest: 🔍
Active Actors: 🔍
Active APT Groups: 🔍

Countermeasuresinfo

Recommended: Upgrade
Status: 🔍

0-Day Time: 🔒

Upgrade: Kernel 5.10.269/5.15.220/6.1.185/6.6.154/6.12.106/6.18.47/7.1.11/7.2.1/7.3-rc1
Patch: ef7048d8a614c5f5a9b20513a5428101a744514e/8ed3ddf23d39bf5338406bd9f8863d44748cf6ce/5dc59fc959b2b5742985d7ef24bccd1868217dc2/a2fb8222cde23b0001812ed3acb7c0ea36dd94e2/18799e858b407bf355383c9dd6c06477aa437134/e11f5b48c82703242a3be7a7ae4b4940b4cb4610/22670d1552fe155822b2abf91f920925f7d067b4/f8c9a3ec36b4ee3d4701b9be08f40e7bfbf89761/2eed77fdcb0cc48e8eccb2bcd4b7f2c6d650e84c

Timelineinfo

08/26/2026 CVE reserved
09/09/2026 +14 days Advisory disclosed
09/09/2026 +0 days VulDB entry created
09/09/2026 +0 days VulDB entry last update

Sourcesinfo

Vendor: kernel.org

Advisory: git.kernel.org
Status: Confirmed

CVE: CVE-2026-80916 (🔒)
GCVE (CVE): GCVE-0-2026-80916
GCVE (VulDB): GCVE-100-401819

Entryinfo

Created: 09/09/2026 18:30
Changes: 09/09/2026 18:30 (59)
Complete: 🔍
Cache ID: 216::103

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