Linux Kernel: Use-After-Free (CVE-2026-98826)
Published Last modified Sources: Debian LTS, Msrc Update Guide, CVE.org, BSI
What is affected, what to do
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: rtc: ac100: Fix clock provider use-after-free on probe failure ac100_rtc_register_clks() registers the RTC-32k clock with clk_hw_register_fixed_rate() and the clock provider with of_clk_add_hw_provider(). Neither is device managed, and both are released only from ac100_rtc_remove().
Update Linux Kernel to version 6.12.113, Linux Kernel to version 6.18.56, Linux Kernel to version 7.2.10.
- Affected
- Linux Kernel
lt 4.9..6.12.113 - Linux Kernel
lt 6.13..6.18.56 - Linux Kernel
lt 6.19..7.2.10
- Linux Kernel
- Fixed in
- Linux Kernel
6.12.113 - Linux Kernel
6.18.56 - Linux Kernel
7.2.10 - Linux Kernel
7.3
- Linux Kernel
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Metrics
6.4
Priority
XIEM Effective CVSS: highest available CVSS rating from NVD and vendor data.
Source: Vendor (CNA), CVSS v3
6.4
CVSS v3
Severity Medium 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 9.8
Show all metrics
- Severity
- Medium
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- 62.77 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- 6.4 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- 6.4
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- 9.8
- 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- Handle the vulnerability in regular vulnerability handling under Art. 21(2)(e) NIS2.
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: rtc: ac100: Fix clock provider use-after-free on probe failure ac100_rtc_register_clks() registers the RTC-32k clock with clk_hw_register_fixed_rate() and the clock provider with of_clk_add_hw_provider(). Neither is device managed, and both are released only from ac100_rtc_remove(). The driver core does not call remove() when probe() fails: really_probe() reaches probe_failed below the device_remove() call and goes straight to releasing the device's managed resources. ac100_rtc_probe() ends with return devm_rtc_register_device(chip->rtc); so if that fails after the clocks have been registered, the provider is left on the global of_clk_providers list holding chip->clk_data, which was allocated with devm_kzalloc() and is freed while probe() unwinds. A later lookup on this device tree node then reads freed memory in of_clk_hw_onecell_get(). Consumers that do exactly that exist in tree: the wifi power sequence nodes on sun8i-a83t-bananapi-m3 and sun8i-a83t-cubietruck-plus take <&ac100_rtc 1>, and the sun9i-a80 boards route osc32k through <&ac100_rtc 0>. The window is narrow, as devm_rtc_register_device() can only fail with -ENOMEM here, but the provider is left dangling whenever it does. The RTC-32k clock is leaked on the same path. Since clk_core_lookup() searches a global list that is not scoped per device, __clk_register() rejects the duplicate name with -EEXIST, so the leak also makes a later probe of the same device fail. The error path that returns -EINVAL when the ADDA 4M parent clock cannot be found leaks the RTC-32k clock in the same way. No provider has been registered at that point, so that one is a leak rather than a use-after-free. Register both with devm_clk_hw_register_fixed_rate() and devm_of_clk_add_hw_provider() so that they are released whenever the device goes away, on a failed probe as well as on unbind. Devres releases in reverse order of acquisition, so the provider is removed before chip->clk_data is freed, and the clkout children are now unregistered before their parent rather than after it. ac100_rtc_unregister_clks() and the remove callback then have nothing left to do and are removed.
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 versions | Fixed in | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Linux | Linux |
|
|
Vendors and products
Affected operating systems
| Linux | debian | linux-6.12 | bookworm |
References & sources
- git.kernel.orgstable/c/12bcd20d76703ee2baf52224d287b7fea096b12f
- git.kernel.orgstable/c/55ca60ba336632349f7c4585d22ba74ae355b7ce
- git.kernel.orgstable/c/9cff19ddd7f90c1f572a0f83cfc41de8f8dcbcd8
- git.kernel.orgstable/c/fcf0b58e976e83adf246b014518e49c662b96f5e
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).
Record modifiedLinux
1 individual change: Affected versions (publisher)
Show the original change
Individual changes of this event as published by NVD Type Action Before After Affected versions (publisher) added —Affected value modified. <a href="https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/blob/main/cves/2026/98xxx/CVE-2026-98826.json">CVE-2026-98826</a>Source identifier: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
ReceivedLinux
Description added or changed
New references:Show 6 original changes
Individual changes of this event as published by NVD Type Action Before After Description added —In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: rtc: ac100: Fix clock provider use-after-free on probe failure ac100_rtc_register_clks() registers the RTC-32k clock with clk_hw_register_fixed_rate() and the clock provider with of_clk_add_hw_provider(). Neither is device managed, and both are released only from ac100_rtc_remove(). The driver core does not call remove() when probe() fails: really_probe() reaches probe_failed below the device_remove() call and goes straight to releasing the device's managed resources. ac100_rtc_probe() ends with return devm_rtc_register_device(chip->rtc); so if that fails after the clocks have been registered, the provider is left on the global of_clk_providers list holding chip->clk_data, which was allocated with devm_kzalloc() and is freed while probe() unwinds. A later lookup on this device tree node then reads freed memory in of_clk_hw_onecell_get(). Consumers that do exactly that exist in tree: the wifi power sequence nodes on sun8i-a83t-bananapi-m3 and sun8i-a83t-cubietruck-plus take <&ac100_rtc 1>, and the sun9i-a80 boards route osc32k through <&ac100_rtc 0>. The window is narrow, as devm_rtc_register_device() can only fail with -ENOMEM here, but the provider is left dangling whenever it does. The RTC-32k clock is leaked on the same path. Since clk_core_lookup() searches a global list that is not scoped per device, __clk_register() rejects the duplicate name with -EEXIST, so the leak also makes a later probe of the same device fail. The error path that returns -EINVAL when the ADDA 4M parent clock cannot be found leaks the RTC-32k clock in the same way. No provider has been registered at that point, so that one is a leak rather than a use-after-free. Register both with devm_clk_hw_register_fixed_rate() and devm_of_clk_add_hw_provider() so that they are released whenever the device goes away, on a failed probe as well as on unbind. Devres releases in reverse order of acquisition, so the provider is removed before chip->clk_data is freed, and the clkout children are now unregistered before their parent rather than after it. ac100_rtc_unregister_clks() and the remove callback then have nothing left to do and are removed.Affected versions (publisher) added —New affected value received. <a href="https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/blob/main/cves/2026/98xxx/CVE-2026-98826.json">CVE-2026-98826</a>Reference added —https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/12bcd20d76703ee2baf52224d287b7fea096b12fReference added —https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/55ca60ba336632349f7c4585d22ba74ae355b7ceReference added —https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/9cff19ddd7f90c1f572a0f83cfc41de8f8dcbcd8Reference added —https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/fcf0b58e976e83adf246b014518e49c662b96f5eSource identifier: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
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<a href="https://intel.neosec.eu/en/cve/CVE-2026-98826"><img src="https://intel.neosec.eu/badge/cve/CVE-2026-98826.svg?lang=en" alt="CVE-2026-98826 – NEOSEC Intel" height="20"></a>