published September 17, 2026
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
md/md-llbitmap: prevent create failure bitmap UAF
llbitmap_create() publishes mddev->bitmap before reading the bitmap
superblock. This is needed because llbitmap_read_sb() can initialize a
new bitmap and flush it through helpers that use mddev->bitmap.
If llbitmap_read_sb() fails, the old cleanup dropped bitmap_info.mutex
and freed llbitmap before clearing mddev->bitmap. Readers such as
/proc/mdstat rely on bitmap_info.mutex to keep the bitmap pointer stable
while collecting bitmap stats, so they could observe the stale pointer
after the failed create path released the mutex.
Clear mddev->bitmap while still holding bitmap_info.mutex, then free the
failed llbitmap after dropping the mutex. This makes mutex-protected
readers see either a live bitmap or no bitmap.