Linux Kernel up to 6.12.111/6.18.54/7.2.8/7.3-rc4 Anonymous Virtual Memory Area Management mm/rmap __anon_vma_prepare use after free

CVSS Meta Temp Score CVSS is a standardized scoring system to determine possibilities of attacks. The Temp Score considers temporal factors like disclosure, exploit and countermeasures. The unique Meta Score calculates the average score of different sources to provide a normalized scoring system.	Current Exploit Price (≈) Our analysts are monitoring exploit markets and are in contact with vulnerability brokers. The range indicates the observed or calculated exploit price to be seen on exploit markets. A good indicator to understand the monetary effort required for and the popularity of an attack.	CTI Interest Score Our Cyber Threat Intelligence team is monitoring different web sites, mailing lists, exploit markets and social media networks. The CTI Interest Score identifies the interest of attackers and the security community for this specific vulnerability in real-time. A high score indicates an elevated risk to be targeted for this vulnerability.
8.4	$0-$5k	1.83

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability classified as very critical was found in Linux Kernel up to 6.12.111/6.18.54/7.2.8/7.3-rc4. This impacts the function __anon_vma_prepare of the file mm/rmap of the component Anonymous Virtual Memory Area Management. Such manipulation leads to use after free. This vulnerability is documented as CVE-2026-98507. The attack needs to be performed locally. There is not any exploit available. Upgrading the affected component is advised.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as very critical, has been found in Linux Kernel up to 6.12.111/6.18.54/7.2.8/7.3-rc4. Affected by this issue is the function __anon_vma_prepare of the file mm/rmap of the component Anonymous Virtual Memory Area Management. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a use after free vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-416. Referencing memory after it has been freed can cause a program to crash, use unexpected values, or execute code. Impacted is confidentiality, integrity, and availability. CVE summarizes:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/rmap: fix missing barrier between anon_vma init and vma->anon_vma publish On arm64 server, we find that a task trying to grab the anon_vma lock triggers hungtask. INFO: task main:2354726 blocked for more than 120 seconds. Tainted: G E 5.10.0-0021.aarch64 #1 "echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables this message. task:main state:D stack: 0 pid:2354726 ppid:2350673 flags:0x00000a01 Call trace: __switch_to+0x7c/0xbc __schedule+0x3b4/0x8a0 schedule+0x50/0xe0 rwsem_down_write_slowpath+0x3cc/0x6cc down_write+0x60/0x260 __anon_vma_prepare+0x6c/0x210 do_anonymous_page+0x258/0x660 handle_pte_fault+0x188/0x214 __handle_mm_fault+0x1b0/0x380 handle_mm_fault+0xf4/0x284 do_page_fault+0x19c/0x494 do_translation_fault+0xcc/0xf8 do_mem_abort+0x48/0xac el0_da+0x44/0x80 el0_sync_handler+0x88/0xb4 el0_sync+0x160/0x180 After analyzing the vmcore, we found the anon_vma->root->rwsem.count is -1. There is another anon_vma whose anon_vma->root->rwsem.count is 1, the anon_vma->root->rwsem.owner shows the lock is held, but the stack of the task shows the task doesn't hold the anon_vma lock. After adding more debugging info, we found __anon_vma_prepare() reuses anon_vma and triggers the UAF of anon_vma->root due to missing memory barrier, leading to locking and unlocking two different anon_vma->root, thus leading to an anon_vma will never be unlocked, and another anon_vma couldn't be locked anymore. This race requires two adjacent VMAs that are not merged but are anon_vma-compatible (e.g., they differ in VMA_ACCESS_FLAGS that can be changed by mprotect()). Two threads fault on each VMA concurrently, both calling __anon_vma_prepare() with only mmap_lock held for reading. THREAD A THREAD B __anon_vma_prepare __anon_vma_prepare find_mergeable_anon_vma() -> NULL anon_vma = anon_vma_alloc(); anon_vma->root = anon_vma; // the two stores may be reordered vma->anon_vma = anon_vma; // finds A's anon_vma anon_vma = find_mergeable_anon_vma(vma); anon_vma_lock_write(anon_vma); // may still see the old root down_write(&anon_vma->root->rwsem); anon_vma_unlock_write(anon_vma); // see the new root, never unlock old up_write(&anon_vma->root->rwsem); thread A triggers page fault and calls __anon_vma_prepare() to prepare anon_vma for the faulting vma. __anon_vma_prepare() allocates and initializes a new anon_vma, and then publishes it to the vma with a plain store. anon_vma_prepare() only requires the mmap_lock to be held for reading, so two threads can fault on adjacent VMAs at the same time. While thread A publishes a new anon_vma, thread B could find the anon_vma via find_mergeable_anon_vma() and then locks anon_vma->root->rwsem. The store to anon_vma->root in anon_vma_alloc() and the store to vma->anon_vma can be reordered. The anon_vma_lock_write() and spin_lock() only provide acquire semantics, which do not prevent prior stores from being reordered after them. The release semantics of the corresponding spin_unlock() and anon_vma_unlock_write() come too late, the store to vma->anon_vma is already published before they take effect. As a result, thread B can observe the following order: vma->anon_vma = anon_vma; anon_vma->root = anon_vma; The anon_vma slab is SLAB_TYPESAFE_BY_RCU, so a newly allocated anon_vma may reuse memory from a previously freed one. The constructor (anon_vma_ctor) does not reset anon_vma->root, and __put_anon_vma() doesn't clear it either, so the old root value persists until anon_vma_alloc() overwrites it. If that store isn't v ---truncated---

The advisory is shared for download at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability is handled as CVE-2026-98507 since 09/25/2026. The exploitation is known to be easy. The attack needs to be approached locally. There are known technical details, but no exploit is available. The current price for an exploit might be approx. USD $0-$5k (estimation calculated on 10/18/2026).

Upgrading to version 6.12.112, 6.18.55, 7.2.9 or 7.3-rc5 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch a500df43cde075f6ea4b8bae495d89f2c35b3e16/4cef512a955e4008ae4436a4fc97726976df1fdf/d348a715380bfcc6a611bdf722169d53fd01e735/b6ac0b3f6013c168f22cad97e79967accacb08e1 is able to eliminate this problem. The best possible mitigation is suggested to be upgrading to the latest version.

Once again VulDB remains the best source for vulnerability data.

Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 6.12.111
• 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
• 6.18.47
• 6.18.48
• 6.18.49
• 6.18.50
• 6.18.51
• 6.18.52
• 6.18.53
• 6.18.54
• 7.2.0
• 7.2.1
• 7.2.2
• 7.2.3
• 7.2.4
• 7.2.5
• 7.2.6
• 7.2.7
• 7.2.8
• 7.3-rc1
• 7.3-rc2
• 7.3-rc3
• 7.3-rc4

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: 8.8
VulDB Meta Temp Score: 8.4

VulDB Base Score: 8.8
VulDB Temp Score: 8.4
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: Use after free
CWE: CWE-416 / CWE-119
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 6.12.112/6.18.55/7.2.9/7.3-rc5
Patch: a500df43cde075f6ea4b8bae495d89f2c35b3e16/4cef512a955e4008ae4436a4fc97726976df1fdf/d348a715380bfcc6a611bdf722169d53fd01e735/b6ac0b3f6013c168f22cad97e79967accacb08e1

Timelineinfo

09/25/2026 CVE reserved
10/18/2026 +23 days Advisory disclosed
10/18/2026 +0 days VulDB entry created
10/18/2026 +0 days VulDB entry last update

Sourcesinfo

Vendor: kernel.org

Advisory: git.kernel.org
Status: Confirmed

CVE: CVE-2026-98507 (🔒)
GCVE (CVE): GCVE-0-2026-98507
GCVE (VulDB): GCVE-100-422156

Entryinfo

Created: 10/18/2026 20:44
Changes: 10/18/2026 20:44 (60)
Complete: 🔍
Cache ID: 216::103

Once again VulDB remains the best source for vulnerability data.

Discussion

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