HighCVE-2026-98735

    Linux Kernel: Use-After-Free (CVE-2026-98735)

    Published Last modified Sources: Debian LTS, Msrc Update Guide, CVE.org, BSI

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    What is affected, what to do

    In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: Bluetooth: hci_core: Serialize ACL scheduling with channel deletion hci_chan_sent() selects a channel under RCU but drops the read lock before accessing chan->conn and returning the channel. The ACL and LE schedulers then use its packet queue and update its transmit counters without any protection against channel deletion.

    Update Linux Kernel to version 5.10.273, Linux Kernel to version 5.15.224, Linux Kernel to version 6.1.191.

    Affected
    • Linux Kernel lt 3.3..5.10.273
    • Linux Kernel lt 5.11..5.15.224
    • Linux Kernel lt 5.16..6.1.191
    • Linux Kernel lt 6.2..6.6.160
    • Linux Kernel lt 6.7..6.12.113
    • Linux Kernel lt 6.13..6.18.56
    • Linux Kernel lt 6.19..7.2.10
    Fixed in
    • Linux Kernel 5.10.273
    • Linux Kernel 5.15.224
    • Linux Kernel 6.1.191
    • Linux Kernel 6.6.160
    • Linux Kernel 6.12.113
    • Linux Kernel 6.18.56
    • Linux Kernel 7.2.10
    • Linux Kernel 7.3

    Not sure whether and how you are affected? Ask a question about this vulnerability

    Metrics

    7.5

    Priority

    XIEM Effective CVSS: highest available CVSS rating from NVD and vendor data.

    Source: Vendor (CNA), CVSS v3

    7.5

    CVSS v3

    Severity High on the scale from 0 to 10.

    Source: Debian LTS, Msrc Update Guide, CVE.org, BSI

    0.2 %

    EPSS score

    Low — model estimates < 1% exploitation likelihood.

    Source: FIRST EPSS, percentile 7.1

    Show all metrics
    Severity
    High
    Priority (0–325)

    The priority score is a consolidated metric that condenses several individual signals into a single, action-guiding ranking: technical severity (CVSS), exploitation likelihood (EPSS), known-exploited status (KEV) and the context of the affected asset. The aim is to answer the only truly important question in vulnerability management: what first?

    Read in glossary
    67.91 Methodology
    Exploit maturity

    An exploit is code or a technique that specifically uses a concrete vulnerability to force unintended behaviour — such as executing code or escalating privileges. It is the tool that turns a theoretical flaw into a practical attack.

    Read in glossary
    no public PoC known
    XIEM Effective CVSS

    XIEM® is the tiered managed-security operating model from NEOSEC and a registered trademark of NEOSEC GmbH. It extends classic SIEM — the central collection, normalisation and correlation of security-relevant events — with endpoint forensics, network visibility and deception technology, and consolidates them into three building tiers: Sentry, Orchestrate and Command.

    Read in glossary
    7.5 Methodology
    CVSS v3

    CVSS is the globally established, open standard for assessing the technical severity of a vulnerability on a scale from 0 to 10. It describes how easily a flaw can be exploited and what damage it can cause — but not how likely its actual exploitation is. CVSS and the complementary EPSS deliberately answer different questions.

    Read in glossary
    7.5
    EPSS score

    The EPSS score is the absolute model output for an individual vulnerability: the estimated probability of real-world exploitation within the next 30 days, expressed as a value between 0 and 1 (i.e. 0 % to 100 %). A score of 0.42 means „the model estimates a 42 % chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days“.

    Read in glossary
    0.2 %
    Low — model estimates < 1% exploitation likelihood.
    EPSS percentile

    The EPSS percentile is the relative position of a vulnerability within all EPSS-scored CVEs, expressed as a value between 0 and 1. A percentile of 0.90 means „this CVE has a higher EPSS score than 90 % of all other scored CVEs“. Unlike the EPSS score, it is not a probability — but a positioning within a ranking.

    Read in glossary
    7.1
    Low — this CVE sits in the lower 10% of all CVEs scored today.
    KEV status

    The KEV catalogue is a list maintained by the US authority CISA of vulnerabilities for which active exploitation in the wild has been confirmed. It answers not the question „how severe?“ but „is it already being attacked?“ — thereby sharply prioritising patching.

    Read in glossary
    —
    Published

    Detection rules

    No NEOSEC detection rule is available for this vulnerability yet.

    Classification under NIS2 and CRA

    Rule-based classification from exploitation status and severity. It does not replace a case-by-case assessment.

    NIS2

    NIS2 is EU Directive (EU) 2022/2555 to raise the level of cybersecurity across the Union. It substantially broadens obligations compared with the first NIS directive: more sectors, mandatory risk management, staged reporting duties and personal accountability of senior management.

    Read in glossary
    High technical severity: assess and remediate the vulnerability in vulnerability handling under Art. 21(2)(e) NIS2 and document the decision.
    CRA

    The CRA is EU Regulation (EU) 2024/2847 setting horizontal cybersecurity requirements for „products with digital elements“ — from industrial controllers and software to connected consumer devices. For the first time manufacturers must ensure security across the entire product lifecycle, handle vulnerabilities and provide security updates.

    Read in glossary
    From 11.12.2027, Annex I Part II CRA requires manufacturers of affected products with digital elements to handle vulnerabilities without delay and provide security updates.
    ISO/IEC 27001

    ISO/IEC 27001 is the internationally leading standard for an information security management system (ISMS). It describes a risk-based, process-oriented framework to systematically plan, implement, review and improve information security.

    Read in glossary
    Control A.8.8, management of technical vulnerabilities: assess relevance to your systems, plan remediation and keep evidence.

    Description

    In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: Bluetooth: hci_core: Serialize ACL scheduling with channel deletion hci_chan_sent() selects a channel under RCU but drops the read lock before accessing chan->conn and returning the channel. The ACL and LE schedulers then use its packet queue and update its transmit counters without any protection against channel deletion. After TX selects a channel and releases RCU, a disconnect command timeout on the separate request workqueue can run hci_conn_failed() and l2cap_conn_del(). hci_chan_del() can then unlink the channel, complete synchronize_rcu(), purge its queue and free it before TX resumes. This causes use-after-free both in hci_chan_sent() and in its callers. KASAN reported: BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in hci_chan_sent+0x892/0x9b0 Workqueue: hci0 hci_tx_work Call Trace: hci_chan_sent+0x892/0x9b0 hci_tx_work+0x5e6/0xb70 Allocated by task 91: hci_chan_create+0xe3/0x350 l2cap_conn_add.part.0+0x12/0xa30 l2cap_chan_connect+0x110d/0x1b60 l2cap_sock_connect+0x310/0x530 Freed by task 99: hci_chan_del+0x11f/0x170 l2cap_conn_del+0x4f1/0x800 l2cap_connect_cfm+0x88c/0xd30 hci_conn_failed+0x150/0x250 hci_abort_conn_sync+0x3e3/0x800 hci_cmd_sync_run+0x7e/0xc0 hci_abort_conn+0x105/0x1f0 disconnect_sync+0x157/0x290 hci_cmd_sync_work+0x13c/0x290 Hold the existing device mutex across channel selection and transmission in both schedulers to serialize them with channel teardown. Keep timeout handling outside the critical sections because hci_link_tx_to() acquires the same mutex. This also permits the transmit path to sleep, unlike extending the RCU read-side critical section across packet submission.

    Source: Debian LTS Advisories, Microsoft Security Update Guide, cvelistv5, NVD (NIST), BSI WID Portal, BSI CSAF

    Affected products

    The following versions are affected. Older releases of the same product line are also vulnerable unless stated otherwise.

    Affected products
    Affected versionsFixed in
    LinuxLinux
    • 3.3 – < 5.10.273
    • 5.11 – < 5.15.224
    • 5.16 – < 6.1.191
    • 6.13 – < 6.18.56
    • 6.19 – < 7.2.10
    • 6.7 – < 6.12.113
    • —
    • 6.2 – < 6.6.160
    • 5.10.273
    • 5.15.224
    • 6.1.191
    • 6.18.56
    • 7.2.10
    • 6.12.113
    • 7.3
    • 6.6.160

    Vendors and products

    Affected operating systems

    Affected operating systems
    Linuxdebianlinux-6.12bookworm

    References & sources

    Changes to this CVE

    Who changed this CVE and when: NVD (analysis, affected products, CVSS), the CVE publisher (CNA) and additional providers such as CISA (ADP).

    1. Record modifiedLinux

      Show 4 original changes
      Individual changes of this event as published by NVD
      TypeActionBeforeAfter
      Affected versions (publisher)added
      —
      Affected value modified. <a href="https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/blob/main/cves/2026/98xxx/CVE-2026-98735.json">CVE-2026-98735</a>
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/126714c495bf31a5e71411b8e0b65a685bb5e58d
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/74667f6eb7c12b65c56e02e0f527e4099db4ebfd
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/7fbeda3dcd5f54e7429f4b5e2cfa7344b7e9b1c9

      Source identifier: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

    2. Record modifiedLinux

      Show 2 original changes
      Individual changes of this event as published by NVD
      TypeActionBeforeAfter
      Affected versions (publisher)added
      —
      Affected value modified. <a href="https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/blob/main/cves/2026/98xxx/CVE-2026-98735.json">CVE-2026-98735</a>
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/780affacd92977fd9b819bdc4f26a6832cb27fda

      Source identifier: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

    3. Record modifiedLinux

      1 individual change: Affected versions (publisher)

      Show the original change
      Individual changes of this event as published by NVD
      TypeActionBeforeAfter
      Affected versions (publisher)added
      —
      Affected value modified. <a href="https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/blob/main/cves/2026/98xxx/CVE-2026-98735.json">CVE-2026-98735</a>

      Source identifier: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

    4. ReceivedLinux

      Description added or changed

      Show 6 original changes
      Individual changes of this event as published by NVD
      TypeActionBeforeAfter
      Descriptionadded
      —
      In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: Bluetooth: hci_core: Serialize ACL scheduling with channel deletion hci_chan_sent() selects a channel under RCU but drops the read lock before accessing chan->conn and returning the channel. The ACL and LE schedulers then use its packet queue and update its transmit counters without any protection against channel deletion. After TX selects a channel and releases RCU, a disconnect command timeout on the separate request workqueue can run hci_conn_failed() and l2cap_conn_del(). hci_chan_del() can then unlink the channel, complete synchronize_rcu(), purge its queue and free it before TX resumes. This causes use-after-free both in hci_chan_sent() and in its callers. KASAN reported: BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in hci_chan_sent+0x892/0x9b0 Workqueue: hci0 hci_tx_work Call Trace: hci_chan_sent+0x892/0x9b0 hci_tx_work+0x5e6/0xb70 Allocated by task 91: hci_chan_create+0xe3/0x350 l2cap_conn_add.part.0+0x12/0xa30 l2cap_chan_connect+0x110d/0x1b60 l2cap_sock_connect+0x310/0x530 Freed by task 99: hci_chan_del+0x11f/0x170 l2cap_conn_del+0x4f1/0x800 l2cap_connect_cfm+0x88c/0xd30 hci_conn_failed+0x150/0x250 hci_abort_conn_sync+0x3e3/0x800 hci_cmd_sync_run+0x7e/0xc0 hci_abort_conn+0x105/0x1f0 disconnect_sync+0x157/0x290 hci_cmd_sync_work+0x13c/0x290 Hold the existing device mutex across channel selection and transmission in both schedulers to serialize them with channel teardown. Keep timeout handling outside the critical sections because hci_link_tx_to() acquires the same mutex. This also permits the transmit path to sleep, unlike extending the RCU read-side critical section across packet submission.
      Affected versions (publisher)added
      —
      New affected value received. <a href="https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/blob/main/cves/2026/98xxx/CVE-2026-98735.json">CVE-2026-98735</a>
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/4fda8f0abeea9929036446d89a476fb8298abcb0
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/51f95ea451f25d7e3f048c0f438f04fa74688aae
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/86e9708f9d19a7f1bd5dc9c1652d07707f79f5bd
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f4845ab191a4f686a5da481fbba90ed73bb693b0

      Source identifier: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

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