CVE-2026-63827
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
apparmor: fix use-after-free in rawdata dedup loop
aa_replace_profiles() walks ns->rawdata_list to dedup the incoming policy blob against entries already attached to existing profiles. Per the kernel-doc on struct aa_loaddata, list membership does not hold a reference: profiles hold pcount, and when the last pcount drops, do_ploaddata_rmfs() is queued on a workqueue that takes ns->lock and removes the entry. Between dropping the last pcount and the workqueue running, an entry remains on the list with pcount == 0.
aa_get_profile_loaddata() is an unconditional kref_get() on pcount, so when the dedup loop hits such an entry, refcount hardening reports
refcount_t: addition on 0; use-after-free.
inside aa_replace_profiles(), and the poisoned counter then trips "saturated" and "underflow" warnings on the subsequent uses of the same loaddata.
Before commit a0b7091c4de4 ("apparmor: fix race on rawdata dereference") the dedup path used a get_unless_zero-style helper on a single counter, so the existing "if (tmp)" guard was meaningful. The split-refcount refactor introduced aa_get_profile_loaddata(), which has plain kref_get() semantics, and the guard quietly became a no-op.
Introduce aa_get_profile_loaddata_not0(), matching the existing _not0 convention used by aa_get_profile_not0(), and use it for the rawdata_list dedup lookup so dying entries are skipped.
Reproduced on x86_64 with v7.1-rc5 in QEMU+KVM running Ubuntu 24.04 + stress-ng 0.17.06:
stress-ng --apparmor 1 --klog-check --timeout 60s
Without this patch the three refcount_t warnings fire within a few seconds. With it the same 60 s run is clean. Coverage is a smoke-test only; a longer soak with CONFIG_KASAN, CONFIG_KCSAN and CONFIG_PROVE_LOCKING would be welcome from anyone with the cycles.
Affected products
16- osv-coords15 versionspkg:linux/kernelpkg:rpm/opensuse/dtb-aarch64&distro=openSUSE%20Leap%2016.0pkg:rpm/opensuse/kernel-64kb&distro=openSUSE%20Leap%2016.0pkg:rpm/opensuse/kernel-azure&distro=openSUSE%20Leap%2016.0pkg:rpm/opensuse/kernel-default&distro=openSUSE%20Leap%2016.0pkg:rpm/opensuse/kernel-default-base&distro=openSUSE%20Leap%2016.0pkg:rpm/opensuse/kernel-docs&distro=openSUSE%20Leap%2016.0pkg:rpm/opensuse/kernel-kvmsmall&distro=openSUSE%20Leap%2016.0pkg:rpm/opensuse/kernel-obs-build&distro=openSUSE%20Leap%2016.0pkg:rpm/opensuse/kernel-obs-qa&distro=openSUSE%20Leap%2016.0pkg:rpm/opensuse/kernel-rt&distro=openSUSE%20Leap%2016.0pkg:rpm/opensuse/kernel-source&distro=openSUSE%20Leap%2016.0pkg:rpm/opensuse/kernel-source&distro=openSUSE%20Tumbleweedpkg:rpm/opensuse/kernel-syms&distro=openSUSE%20Leap%2016.0pkg:rpm/opensuse/kernel-zfcpdump&distro=openSUSE%20Leap%2016.0
< 5.10.261+ 14 more
- (no CPE)range: < 5.10.261
- (no CPE)range: < 6.12.0-160000.37.1
- (no CPE)range: < 6.12.0-160000.37.1
- (no CPE)range: < 6.12.0-160000.37.1
- (no CPE)range: < 6.12.0-160000.37.1
- (no CPE)range: < 6.12.0-160000.37.1.160000.2.19
- (no CPE)range: < 6.12.0-160000.37.1
- (no CPE)range: < 6.12.0-160000.37.1
- (no CPE)range: < 6.12.0-160000.37.1
- (no CPE)range: < 6.12.0-160000.37.1
- (no CPE)range: < 6.12.0-160000.37.1
- (no CPE)range: < 6.12.0-160000.37.1
- (no CPE)range: < 7.1.4-1.1
- (no CPE)range: < 6.12.0-160000.37.1
- (no CPE)range: < 6.12.0-160000.37.1
Patches
Vulnerability mechanics
References
8- git.kernel.org/stable/c/15fd83a1e42ede15070968806bb6c8b1a5170688nvd
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/5e34fa9f6f7cd688ae153fff13139a5cf2d42339nvd
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/643221da57dbb1a8fd800610331cf1ec27969f71nvd
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/6f060496d03e4dc560a40f73770bd08335cb7a27nvd
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/a7a2890028f16e5b0af0bb005d80fcb32559cca3nvd
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/b17f0c59cc1525765625cf07d0391b7f9c1ed7e5nvd
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/c3ca2631073b2cef06824fd2bfc452ff7a1023denvd
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/ce261a20b41db522e320a41bbf1292bf85af66dfnvd
News mentions
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