Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

kcov: fix data corruption and race conditions on PREEMPT_RT

syzbot is reporting KCOV state corruption on PREEMPT_RT kernels, for the
temporary storage used for saving/restoring remote KCOV state is currently
allocated as the per-CPU area.

On PREEMPT_RT kernels, softirq handlers run as preemptible task threads
(e.g., ksoftirqd). If a softirq context preempts a task running a remote
KCOV session, it safely saves the task's state into the per-CPU area.
However, if that softirq thread is subsequently preempted by a higher-
priority softirq thread on the same CPU, the second softirq will overwrite
the same per-CPU area, permanently destroying the original task's KCOV
state.

Fix this data corruption by moving the temporary storage from the per-CPU
area to the per-thread area. Since each softirq thread now owns its own
task context, nested softirq preemption no longer causes data overwrites.

Note that while the temporary storage is now on a per-thread basis, the
per-CPU kcov_percpu_data.lock must be retained, for we need to ensure that
kcov_remote_start() and kcov_remote_stop() operate atomically without
racing against asynchronous interrupts that manipulate the current task's
KCOV state.

It is likely that GFP_KERNEL allocation by vmalloc_node() in kcov_init()
has already called panic() before returning NULL, for there will be no
OOM-killable userspace processes when __init function of built-in module
runs. But this patch also fixes crashing the kernel when vmalloc_node()
in kcov_init() returned NULL, for kcov_init() left per-CPU irq_area == NULL
but kcov_remote_start() depends on per-CPU irq_area != NULL, resulting in

(1) doing vmalloc() in kcov_remote_start() despite !in_task() context

(2) out-of-array-bounds access if (1) succeeded but
kcov->remote_size < CONFIG_KCOV_IRQ_AREA_SIZE

(3) always leak memory allocated by (1), eventually killing all
OOM-killable userspace processes

problems.
Published: 2026-09-09
Score: n/a
EPSS: n/a
KEV: No
Impact: n/a
Action: n/a
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History

Wed, 09 Sep 2026 18:15:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Weaknesses CWE-362

Wed, 09 Sep 2026 16:30:00 +0000

Type Values Removed Values Added
Description In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: kcov: fix data corruption and race conditions on PREEMPT_RT syzbot is reporting KCOV state corruption on PREEMPT_RT kernels, for the temporary storage used for saving/restoring remote KCOV state is currently allocated as the per-CPU area. On PREEMPT_RT kernels, softirq handlers run as preemptible task threads (e.g., ksoftirqd). If a softirq context preempts a task running a remote KCOV session, it safely saves the task's state into the per-CPU area. However, if that softirq thread is subsequently preempted by a higher- priority softirq thread on the same CPU, the second softirq will overwrite the same per-CPU area, permanently destroying the original task's KCOV state. Fix this data corruption by moving the temporary storage from the per-CPU area to the per-thread area. Since each softirq thread now owns its own task context, nested softirq preemption no longer causes data overwrites. Note that while the temporary storage is now on a per-thread basis, the per-CPU kcov_percpu_data.lock must be retained, for we need to ensure that kcov_remote_start() and kcov_remote_stop() operate atomically without racing against asynchronous interrupts that manipulate the current task's KCOV state. It is likely that GFP_KERNEL allocation by vmalloc_node() in kcov_init() has already called panic() before returning NULL, for there will be no OOM-killable userspace processes when __init function of built-in module runs. But this patch also fixes crashing the kernel when vmalloc_node() in kcov_init() returned NULL, for kcov_init() left per-CPU irq_area == NULL but kcov_remote_start() depends on per-CPU irq_area != NULL, resulting in (1) doing vmalloc() in kcov_remote_start() despite !in_task() context (2) out-of-array-bounds access if (1) succeeded but kcov->remote_size < CONFIG_KCOV_IRQ_AREA_SIZE (3) always leak memory allocated by (1), eventually killing all OOM-killable userspace processes problems.
Title kcov: fix data corruption and race conditions on PREEMPT_RT
First Time appeared Linux
Linux linux Kernel
CPEs cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*
Vendors & Products Linux
Linux linux Kernel
References

Subscriptions

Linux Linux Kernel
cve-icon MITRE

Status: PUBLISHED

Assigner: Linux

Published:

Updated: 2026-09-09T16:13:14.587Z

Reserved: 2026-08-26T14:34:25.801Z

Link: CVE-2026-80916

cve-icon Vulnrichment

No data.

cve-icon NVD

Status : Received

Published: 2026-09-09T17:17:46.513

Modified: 2026-09-09T17:17:46.513

Link: CVE-2026-80916

cve-icon Redhat

No data.

cve-icon OpenCVE Enrichment

Updated: 2026-09-09T18:00:08Z

Weaknesses