CVE-2026-74264net: watchdog: fix refcount tracking races
- 7.8HighCVSS base score
- 0.18%Exploitation in 30 daysEPSS · top 93% of all CVEs
- NoKnown exploitednot in CISA's KEV catalog
- NonePublic exploitsnone known yet
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: watchdog: fix refcount tracking races Blamed commit converted the untracked dev_hold()/dev_put() calls in the watchdog code to use the tracked dev_hold_track()/dev_put_track() (which were later renamed/interfaced to netdev_hold() and netdev_put()). By introducing dev->watchdog_dev_tracker to store the reference tracking information without adding synchronization between netdev_watchdog_up() and dev_watchdog(), it enabled the race condition where this pointer could be overwritten or freed concurrently, leading to the list corruption crash syzbot reported: list_del corruption, ffff888114a18c00->next is NULL kernel BUG at lib/list_debug.c:52 ! Oops: invalid opcode: 0000 [#1] SMP KASAN PTI CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 91 Comm: kworker/u8:5 Not tainted syzkaller #0 PREEMPT(lazy) Hardware name: Google Google Compute Engine/Google Compute Engine, BIOS Google 05/09/2026 Workqueue: events_unbound linkwatch_event RIP: 0010:__list_del_entry_valid_or_report.cold+0x22/0x2a lib/list_debug.c:52 Call Trace: <TASK> __list_del_entry_valid include/linux/list.h:132 [inline] __list_del_entry include/linux/list.h:246 [inline] list_move_tail include/linux/list.h:341 [inline] ref_tracker_free+0x1a7/0x6c0 lib/ref_tracker.c:329 netdev_tracker_free include/linux/netdevice.h:4491 [inline] netdev_put include/linux/netdevice.h:4508 [inline] netdev_put include/linux/netdevice.h:4504 [inline] netdev_watchdog_down net/sched/sch_generic.c:600 [inline] dev_deactivate_many+0x28c/0xfe0 net/sched/sch_generic.c:1363 dev_deactivate+0x109/0x1d0 net/sched/sch_generic.c:1397 linkwatch_do_dev net/core/link_watch.c:184 [inline] linkwatch_do_dev+0xd3/0x120 net/core/link_watch.c:166 __linkwatch_run_queue+0x3a5/0x810 net/core/link_watch.c:240 linkwatch_event+0x8f/0xc0 net/core/link_watch.c:314 process_one_work+0xa0e/0x1980 kernel/workqueue.c:3314 process_scheduled_works kernel/workqueue.c:3397 [inline] worker_thread+0x5ef/0xe50 kernel/workqueue.c:3478 kthread+0x370/0x450 kernel/kthread.c:436 ret_from_fork+0x69a/0xc80 arch/x86/kernel/process.c:158 ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30 arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:245 This patch has three coordinated parts: 1) Add dev->watchdog_lock and dev->watchdog_ref_held to serialize watchdog operations. 2) Remove netdev_watchdog_up() call from netif_carrier_on(): This ensures netdev_watchdog_up() is only called from process/BH context (via linkwatch workqueue dev_activate()), allowing us to use spin_lock_bh() for synchronization. 3) Synchronize watchdog up and watchdog timer: Protect netdev_watchdog_up() with tx_global_lock and watchdog_lock. Only allocate a new tracker in netdev_watchdog_up() if one is not already present. In dev_watchdog(), ensure we don't release the tracker if the timer was rescheduled either by dev_watchdog() itself or concurrently by netdev_watchdog_up().
Timeline
ID reserved
By Linux
Published
- 3 months later
· 3 months later
Record updated
Changes after publication (a new score, a public exploit, EPSS crossing 1, 10 or 50 %, leaving KEV) are kept since November 2026; earlier ones are not known.
Scores
| Scored by | CVSS | Score | Vector |
|---|---|---|---|
| LinuxCNA (assigner) | 3.1 | High7.8 | CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H |
| NVDNVD · Received | 3.1 | High7.8 | CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H |
- EPSS (exploitation in 30 days)
- 0.18% · top 93% of all CVEs (14 Nov 2026)
- CISA SSVC
- Exploitation: none · Automatable: no · Technical impact: total
The list uses the assigner's score when there is one, then CISA's, then NVD's: High 7.8.
Affected products
- affected f12bf6f3f942b37de65eeea8be25903587fec930 – < fbb8e79c117adcbfafef33b81d0db853b461bdac
- affected f12bf6f3f942b37de65eeea8be25903587fec930 – < 2fc2c92320272a99e18bbb102252859b6ee50881
- affected f12bf6f3f942b37de65eeea8be25903587fec930 – < 6b2330facc90e43b6d7171a0ac12c23dfcbdc30d
- affected f12bf6f3f942b37de65eeea8be25903587fec930 – < 446fe8ce699ce0a4d702f7b0fcdb50de340b9260
- affected f12bf6f3f942b37de65eeea8be25903587fec930 – < 7ce2b00ff058ec4cafc9b447e1f0a6d6f49275d9
- affected f12bf6f3f942b37de65eeea8be25903587fec930 – < 8eed5519e496b7a07f441a0f579cb228a33189f7
- affected 5.17
- unaffected < 5.17
- unaffected 6.1.191 – ≤ 6.1.*
- unaffected 6.6.160 – ≤ 6.6.*
- unaffected 6.12.114 – ≤ 6.12.*
- unaffected 6.18.40 – ≤ 6.18.*
- unaffected 7.1.5 – ≤ 7.1.*
- unaffected 7.2 – ≤ *
References
References6
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/fbb8e79c117adcbfafef33b81d0db853b461bdac (opens in a new tab)
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2fc2c92320272a99e18bbb102252859b6ee50881 (opens in a new tab)
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/6b2330facc90e43b6d7171a0ac12c23dfcbdc30d (opens in a new tab)
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/446fe8ce699ce0a4d702f7b0fcdb50de340b9260 (opens in a new tab)
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/7ce2b00ff058ec4cafc9b447e1f0a6d6f49275d9 (opens in a new tab)
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/8eed5519e496b7a07f441a0f579cb228a33189f7 (opens in a new tab)
Sources
The same CVE in the primary databases and aggregators, to check against.
- CVE.org record (opens in a new tab)
- CVE List JSON (GitHub) (opens in a new tab)
- NVD (opens in a new tab)
- FIRST EPSS (opens in a new tab)
- EUVD EUVD-2026-59411 (opens in a new tab)
- OSV.dev (opens in a new tab)
- GitHub Advisories (opens in a new tab)
- CIRCL Vulnerability-Lookup (opens in a new tab)
Badge for a README or a ticket
[](https://cveledger.app/cve/CVE-2026-74264)Record last updated .