Answer in brief
CVE-2026-43402 records a Critical severity (CVSS 9.8) vulnerability in kthread: consolidate kthread exit paths to prevent use-after-free. The current sources do not mark it as known exploited. The current feed maps Linux/Linux (generic), Linux/Linux (generic). Check affected ranges and fixed versions before updating.
Analysis pending evidence review
HOL Guard separates source facts from reviewed analysis. See the methodology.
CVSS is 9.8. The current sources do not mark it as known exploited. Treat this as a source-backed prioritization signal, not a statement about your environment.
Analysis status
Analysis pending evidence review
Factual feed record only; HOL analysis is not approved for indexing. Read the methodology.
The current feed maps Linux/Linux (generic), Linux/Linux (generic). Check affected ranges and fixed versions before updating.
| Product | Affected versions | Fixed versions |
|---|---|---|
| cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* | Not reported | Not reported |
| cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:7.0:rc1:*:*:*:*:*:* | Not reported | Not reported |
| cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:7.0:rc2:*:*:*:*:*:* | Not reported | Not reported |
| Package | Affected range | Fixed version |
|---|---|---|
| Linux/Linuxgeneric | >=4d13f4304fa43471bfea101658a11feec7b28ac0 <4729c7b00a347fd37d0cbc265b85f2884c3e06b6 || >=4d13f4304fa43471bfea101658a11feec7b28ac0 <5a591d7a5e48d30100943940a30a6ab41b15c672 || >=4d13f4304fa43471bfea101658a11feec7b28ac0 <28aaa9c39945b7925a1cc1d513c8f21ed38f5e4f | 4729c7b00a347fd37d0cbc265b85f2884c3e06b6, 5a591d7a5e48d30100943940a30a6ab41b15c672, 28aaa9c39945b7925a1cc1d513c8f21ed38f5e4f |
| Linux/Linuxgeneric | 6.14 | Not reported |
Published upstream
May 8, 2026
Evidence: source:cvelist:source_dates:source-dates:recordSource modified
Oct 19, 2026
Evidence: source:cvelist:source_dates:source-dates:recordFirst seen by HOL
Aug 5, 2026
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: kthread: consolidate kthread exit paths to prevent use-after-free Guillaume reported crashes via corrupted RCU callback function pointers during KUnit testing. The crash was traced back to the pidfs rhashtable conversion which replaced the 24-byte rb_node with an 8-byte rhash_head in struct pid, shrinking it from 160 to 144 bytes. struct kthread (without CONFIG_BLK_CGROUP) is also 144 bytes. With CONFIG_SLAB_MERGE_DEFAULT and SLAB_HWCACHE_ALIGN both round up to 192 bytes and share the same slab cache. struct pid.rcu.func and struct kthread.affinity_node both sit at offset 0x78. When a kthread exits via make_task_dead() it bypasses kthread_exit() and misses the affinity_node cleanup. free_kthread_struct() frees the memory while the node is still linked into the global kthread_affinity_list. A subsequent list_del() by another kthread writes through dangling list pointers into the freed and reused memory, corrupting the pid's rcu.func pointer. Instead of patching free_kthread_struct() to handle the missed cleanup, consolidate all kthread exit paths. Turn kthread_exit() into a macro that calls do_exit() and add kthread_do_exit() which is called from do_exit() for any task with PF_KTHREAD set. This guarantees that kthread-specific cleanup always happens regardless of the exit path - make_task_dead(), direct do_exit(), or kthread_exit(). Replace __to_kthread() with a new tsk_is_kthread() accessor in the public header. Export do_exit() since module code using the kthread_exit() macro now needs it directly.
Quoted source text, attributed separately from HOL analysis.