# CVE-2026-98918: mm/damon/ops-common: use a page-aligned address in damon_ptep_mkold()


- **Severity:** Not scored
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 23 Oct 2026
- **Updated:** 23 Oct 2026
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2026-98918, GHSA-2q7x-49g7-vwpm, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-98918

## What is CVE-2026-98918?

CVE-2026-98918 is a vulnerability in Linux, published on 23 Oct 2026. 

### Official description

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

mm/damon/ops-common: use a page-aligned address in damon_ptep_mkold()

__damon_va_prepare_access_check() picks a random byte address within the
region and stores it in r->sampling_addr.  damon_va_mkold() passes it into
a page table walk, which hands it to damon_ptep_mkold() as the address of
the page to sample:

  damon_va_mkold(mm, r->sampling_addr)
    damon_va_walk_page_range(mm, addr, addr + 1)
      damon_mkold_pmd_entry()
        damon_ptep_mkold(pte, vma, addr)
          ptep_test_and_clear_young(vma, addr, pte)
          mmu_notifier_clear_young(mm, addr, addr + PAGE_SIZE)

For arm64, before commit 6f0e1142173a ("arm64: mm: support batch clearing
of the young flag for large folios"), the contpte helper walked exactly
CONT_PTES entries from the aligned-down page table pointer and used @addr
only to pass down to each entry, so an unaligned value was harmless:

        ptep = contpte_align_down(ptep);
        addr = ALIGN_DOWN(addr, CONT_PTE_SIZE);
        for (i = 0; i < CONT_PTES; i++, ptep++, addr += PAGE_SIZE)

Now the range to walk is derived from @addr instead: end = addr + nr *
PAGE_SIZE, rounded up to CONT_PTE_SIZE.  For a sample in the last page of
a contpte block, the sub-page offset puts end just past the block
boundary, so the round-up lands a whole block further and the walk clears
PTE_AF in CONT_PTES entries beyond the sampled block.  For the last block
in a page table page, those entries are past the end of that page, so the
walk writes into the page that follows.

Triggered by the full 7.1/7.2 kernel selftest suite on arm64 (EC2
c/m6g.4xlarge).  The kernel sometimes crashes at or shortly after the
DAMON test.

What the overrun does depends on the page that happens to follow the page
table, so there is no single signature.  If that page is read-only, the
write faults in the sampling path itself:

  Unable to handle kernel write to read-only memory at virtual address ffff0003c5d2d000
    FSC = 0x0f: level 3 permission fault
    CM = 0, WnR = 1, TnD = 0, TagAccess = 0
  CPU: 10 UID: 0 PID: 3487 Comm: kdamond.2
  pc : contpte_test_and_clear_young_ptes+0x70/0xc0
  lr : damon_ptep_mkold+0x1e8/0x1f8
  Call trace:
   contpte_test_and_clear_young_ptes+0x70/0xc0 (P)
   damon_mkold_pmd_entry+0x150/0x170
   walk_pmd_range+0x110/0x2b0
   walk_pud_range+0x10c/0x208
   walk_pgd_range+0x134/0x258
   __walk_page_range+0x98/0x1b0
   walk_page_range_vma_unsafe+0x90/0x148
   walk_page_range_vma+0x28/0x40
   damon_va_walk_page_range+0x114/0x2b8
   damon_va_prepare_access_checks+0xec/0x1a8
   kdamond_fn+0x534/0x770
   kthread+0x128/0x138
   ret_from_fork+0x10/0x20

Otherwise the page is writable, the PTE_AF clearing succeeds silently and
the damage only surfaces later, in whatever happened to own the page, so
the backtrace is unrelated to DAMON and differs between runs.

Pass a page-aligned address to the ptep_test_and_clear_young() call in
damon_ptep_mkold(), which is the only place DAMON can reach
contpte_test_and_clear_young_ptes() from.  Nothing else sees the aligned
address, and r->sampling_addr itself is left as is, so the sampling and
region bookkeeping semantics are unchanged.

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-98918?


## How do I fix CVE-2026-98918?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

## Is CVE-2026-98918 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-98918 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2026-98918 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-98918 is a vulnerability in Linux, published on 23 Oct 2026. 
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-98918 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Linux. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-98918/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-98918/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-98918
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-98918
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-98918

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-98918/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.