CVE-2026-98357

8.1 HIGH

Published 2026-10-06 · Updated 2026-10-07

AI risk analysis

Summary: The Linux kernel's iSCSI over RDMA (iSER) implementation has a race condition where control PDU completions can be processed after the connection is already freed, leading to use-after-free memory corruption. This occurs because deferred completions are queued without ensuring they complete before connection teardown.
Exploitability: Exploitation is moderately difficult and requires specific timing conditions to trigger the race window between completion processing and connection teardown, but could potentially lead to kernel memory corruption.
Blast radius: If exploited, this vulnerability could cause system instability, kernel crashes, or potentially allow privilege escalation through kernel memory corruption in environments using iSCSI over RDMA connections.
Detection: No reliable host or network indicator is derivable from the published description.
Prioritized remediation: Apply the kernel patch from the Linux kernel version 6.10-rc1 or later which includes the fix for this race condition in the IB/isert driver.

kerneliscsimemory-corruption

Analysis generated locally by garnet-coder (no data left the box). AI-assisted — verify against primary sources before acting.

NVD description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: IB/isert: wait for deferred control PDU completions before releasing the connection isert_send_done() hands ISTATE_SEND_TASKMGTRSP, ISTATE_SEND_REJECT and ISTATE_SEND_TEXTRSP completions off to isert_comp_wq and returns. The work item then runs isert_completion_put() -> isert_put_cmd(), which reads isert_conn->conn and takes conn->cmd_lock. Nothing orders that work item against teardown. isert_wait_conn() queues isert_release_work, which frees isert_conn, and iscsit_close_connection() frees the iscsit_conn right after it returns, so the queued work can run against freed memory. Count the deferred control PDU completions per connection and let isert_wait_conn() wait for them before the release work is queued. ISTATE_SEND_LOGOUTRSP is deliberately not counted: that branch runs iscsit_logout_post_handler(), which ends up waiting for conn->conn_wait_comp, and that completion is only sent by iscsit_close_connection() after it has called iscsit_wait_conn(). Waiting for it here would deadlock. Its wait stays the existing isert_wait4logout(). The splat below is from a kernel with tracing printk()s and an msleep(200) injected into isert_do_control_comp() to widen the window: BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in isert_put_cmd+0x53d/0x620 Read of size 8 at addr ffff8881054f1038 by task kworker/u17:1/182 CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 182 Comm: kworker/u17:1 Tainted: G B 7.2.0-rc5-TWIDE-gb8babf08acc7 #1 PREEMPT(lazy) Tainted: [B]=BAD_PAGE Hardware name: QEMU Ubuntu 24.04 PC v2 (i440FX + PIIX, arch_caps fix, 1996), BIOS 1.16.3-debian-1.16.3-2 04/01/2014 Workqueue: isert_comp_wq isert_do_control_comp Call Trace: <TASK> dump_stack_lvl+0x53/0x70 print_report+0xd0/0x630 ? __pfx__raw_spin_lock_irqsave+0x10/0x10 ? _raw_spin_unlock_irqrestore+0x3e/0x70 ? isert_put_cmd+0x53d/0x620 kasan_report+0xce/0x100 ? isert_put_cmd+0x53d/0x620 isert_put_cmd+0x53d/0x620 ? isert_completion_put+0x305/0x330 ? isert_do_control_comp+0x2ef/0x310 process_one_work+0x633/0x1030 ? assign_work+0x11d/0x370 worker_thread+0x45b/0xd10 ? __pfx_worker_thread+0x10/0x10 ? __pfx_worker_thread+0x10/0x10 kthread+0x2c6/0x3b0 ? recalc_sigpending+0x15c/0x1e0 ? __pfx_kthread+0x10/0x10 ret_from_fork+0x36e/0x5a0 ? __pfx_ret_from_fork+0x10/0x10 ? __switch_to+0x572/0xdd0 ? __pfx_kthread+0x10/0x10 ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30 </TASK> Allocated by task 48: kasan_save_stack+0x33/0x60 kasan_save_track+0x14/0x30 __kasan_kmalloc+0x8f/0xa0 __kmalloc_cache_noprof+0x158/0x370 isert_cma_handler+0x1e3/0x2ae0 cma_cm_event_handler+0x3e/0x240 cma_ib_req_handler+0x17d9/0x4490 cm_process_work+0x41/0x330 cm_work_handler+0x5727/0xc160 process_one_work+0x633/0x1030 worker_thread+0x45b/0xd10 kthread+0x2c6/0x3b0 ret_from_fork+0x36e/0x5a0 ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30 Freed by task 184: kasan_save_stack+0x33/0x60 kasan_save_track+0x14/0x30 kasan_save_free_info+0x3b/0x60 __kasan_slab_free+0x43/0x70 kfree+0x121/0x380 iscsit_close_connection+0x7cf/0x1e60 iscsit_take_action_for_connection_exit+0x1b6/0x360 iscsi_target_tx_thread+0x472/0x690 kthread+0x2c6/0x3b0 ret_from_fork+0x36e/0x5a0 ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30

CVSS vector

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

All references

Source data: NVD (nvd.nist.gov), public domain. Exploit-DB.ai adds local AI analysis for defensive use only.

Related CVEs

Related by shared AI tags and CWE weakness class. Browse the full archive.