CVE-2026-90431 remoteproc: Prevent crash handling to race with rproc_del()
A race condition in the Linux kernel remoteproc subsystem allows local attackers to trigger a use-after-free, potentially causing system crashes or privilege escalation.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Any signed-in user
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2026-90431?
CVE-2026-90431 is an use after free vulnerability in Linux, published on 17 Sep 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
remoteproc: Prevent crash handling to race with rproc_del()
There's no synchronization between rproc_crash_handler_work() and rproc_del(), as such it's possible for a driver to be removed while crash-handler work is scheduled, or even executing - resulting in use-after-free issues.
To avoid this the scheduled work need to be cancelled and synchronized against before the removal proceeds.
In order to ensure that this doesn't race with the reporting, and thereby scheduling new work, a "deleting" flag is introduced. This is similar to the RPROC_DELETE state that was introduced to ensure that "start" didn't race with rproc_del(), but the existing mechanism can not be used as it's valid to call rproc_report_crash() in atomic context - and the "state" is protected by a mutex.
In the event that work is cancelled the pm_stay_awake() is left unbalanced and need to be unrolled.
The blocking and cancelling of crash-handler work prior to the actual rproc_shutdown() call does have the explicit side-effect that crashes resulting from the shutdown process will not enter the crash-handling path, and as such will not generate devcoredumps etc. Due to the existing mutual exclusion between these code paths there's no concrete reduction in functionality, but further work would be needed to handle this case.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-90431?
How do I fix CVE-2026-90431?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Upgrade to the fixed version. These bugs are found with fuzzing and sanitisers and avoided by memory-safe languages. More about Use after free.
Is CVE-2026-90431 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-90431 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as AZL-102783, BELL-CVE-2026-90431, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-90431, GHSA-j445-23gj-v4rv, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-90431.