CVE-2026-89643

audit: avoid dropping live tree ref on fsnotify rule autoremove

State: Published
Severity: 9.8 Critical
Published: Sep 11, 2026
Updated: Oct 19, 2026
Reserved: Sep 11, 2026

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

audit: avoid dropping live tree ref on fsnotify rule autoremove

audit_del_rule() is used for both netlink deletion templates and internal fsnotify autoremove. The former passes a parsed template which owns a temporary tree reference; the latter passes the installed entry itself.

The unconditional audit_put_tree() at the end of audit_del_rule() assumes the template case. For mixed AUDIT_DIR plus AUDIT_EXE rules, an fsnotify autoremove event therefore drops the installed rule's live tree reference. Repeating this across rules sharing the same tree can free the tree while another rule still references it, and a later autoremove dereferences the freed pathname while comparing rules.

Move the temporary-tree put to audit_rule_change(), the caller that owns deletion templates. Keep it in the AUDIT_DEL_RULE cleanup so both successful deletion and -ENOENT still release the parser-owned tree.

[PM: dropped unnecessary comment for line length reasons]

Scores

CVSS	Score	Vector	Source
3.1	9.8 Critical	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H	Linux

Weaknesses

The record names no weakness.

Affected Products

Product	Versions
LinuxLinux	34d99af52ad40bd498ba66970579a5bc1fb1a3bc to before 9cac21f8eb82675ed19fb955b8bbb9dd14cc3d58Affected 34d99af52ad40bd498ba66970579a5bc1fb1a3bc to before b322cc7adcd2e6ec1594d187533a126506ab545cAffected 34d99af52ad40bd498ba66970579a5bc1fb1a3bc to before 695c85dc345a4e0292739f004c261bedef3f27e6Affected 34d99af52ad40bd498ba66970579a5bc1fb1a3bc to before 01b0ec8c397be65ff710777c97017ca1de56ef8eAffected 34d99af52ad40bd498ba66970579a5bc1fb1a3bc to before cf37b61b5420fd4600fe78cf8c24da6e4d9bfe28Affected 34d99af52ad40bd498ba66970579a5bc1fb1a3bc to before 636a99bab36ba27515363d325866c0273ac83b3eAffected 34d99af52ad40bd498ba66970579a5bc1fb1a3bc to before 583cf579b32d99e3fe4e9c8ecc4d852e3708fbecAffected 34d99af52ad40bd498ba66970579a5bc1fb1a3bc to before 783f0f0974c156aca630f4ffff248671082a098dAffected
LinuxLinux	4.3Affected before 4.3Not affected 5.10.270 through 5.10.Not affected 5.15.221 through 5.15.Not affected 6.1.188 through 6.1.Not affected 6.6.157 through 6.6.Not affected 6.12.109 through 6.12.Not affected 6.18.50 through 6.18.Not affected 7.2.4 through 7.2.*Not affected 7.3 and laterNot affected

Product

Versions

LinuxLinux

34d99af52ad40bd498ba66970579a5bc1fb1a3bc to before 9cac21f8eb82675ed19fb955b8bbb9dd14cc3d58Affected
34d99af52ad40bd498ba66970579a5bc1fb1a3bc to before b322cc7adcd2e6ec1594d187533a126506ab545cAffected
34d99af52ad40bd498ba66970579a5bc1fb1a3bc to before 695c85dc345a4e0292739f004c261bedef3f27e6Affected
34d99af52ad40bd498ba66970579a5bc1fb1a3bc to before 01b0ec8c397be65ff710777c97017ca1de56ef8eAffected
34d99af52ad40bd498ba66970579a5bc1fb1a3bc to before cf37b61b5420fd4600fe78cf8c24da6e4d9bfe28Affected
34d99af52ad40bd498ba66970579a5bc1fb1a3bc to before 636a99bab36ba27515363d325866c0273ac83b3eAffected
34d99af52ad40bd498ba66970579a5bc1fb1a3bc to before 583cf579b32d99e3fe4e9c8ecc4d852e3708fbecAffected
34d99af52ad40bd498ba66970579a5bc1fb1a3bc to before 783f0f0974c156aca630f4ffff248671082a098dAffected

LinuxLinux

4.3Affected
before 4.3Not affected
5.10.270 through 5.10.*Not affected
5.15.221 through 5.15.*Not affected
6.1.188 through 6.1.*Not affected
6.6.157 through 6.6.*Not affected
6.12.109 through 6.12.*Not affected
6.18.50 through 6.18.*Not affected
7.2.4 through 7.2.*Not affected
7.3 and laterNot affected

References

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