High · published October 6, 2026
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
net: lock the socket in sock_gettstamp()
sk->sk_flags must only be changed while holding the socket lock,
because sock_set_flag() and sock_reset_flag() use non atomic
operations (__set_bit() and __clear_bit()).
sock_gettstamp() is one of the last places where a bit of sk->sk_flags
is changed from a syscall without owning the socket lock, through
sock_enable_timestamp(sk, SOCK_TIMESTAMP).
sk_set_memalloc() and sk_clear_memalloc() also change sk->sk_flags
without the socket lock, but their callers (nbd, iscsi_tcp, nvme-tcp,
sunrpc, wireguard) need a careful audit, this will be addressed in a
separate patch.
Jungwoo Lee and Wongi Lee reported an UDP socket use-after-free
caused by this bug: a SIOCGSTAMPNS_NEW ioctl racing with bind()
can cancel the SOCK_RCU_FREE bit that udp_lib_get_port() just set,
because both threads perform a read-modify-write on the same word.
CPU 0 (bind) CPU 1 (SIOCGSTAMPNS_NEW)
-------------------------------- ----------------------------
read sk_flags = F read sk_flags = F
compute F | BIT(SOCK_RCU_FREE) compute F | BIT(SOCK_TIMESTAMP)
store F | BIT(SOCK_RCU_FREE)
sk_add_node_rcu(sk, ...)
store F | BIT(SOCK_TIMESTAMP)
After the lost update, SOCK_RCU_FREE is clear while the socket is
visible to lockless UDP receive lookups. sk_destruct() then frees
the socket immediately instead of waiting for a RCU grace period,
while the receive path still holds a reference-less pointer to it:
BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in ipv4_pktinfo_prepare+0x30/0x410
Read of size 8 at addr ffff888008806610 by task exploit/207
CPU: 0 UID: 1000 PID: 207 Comm: exploit Not tainted 6.12.95+ #1
ipv4_pktinfo_prepare+0x30/0x410
udp_queue_rcv_one_skb+0x51c/0x1180
udp_unicast_rcv_skb+0x109/0x350
ip_protocol_deliver_rcu+0x14b/0x310
ip_local_deliver_finish+0x29d/0x390
ip_local_deliver+0x24d/0x2a0
Only grab the socket lock when SOCK_TIMESTAMP has to be set,
to keep the common case lockless.