CVE-2026-97918: tracing: Undo the registration when enabling the histogram trigger fails

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: tracing: Undo the registration when enabling the histogram trigger fails Commit 6f86bdeab633 ("tracing: Fix bad hist from corrupting named_triggers list") described how a trigger that is registered but not on file->triggers ends up freed while still on the global named_triggers list, and moved the registration down so that hist_trigger_enable() follows it immediately. One path still gets there. hist_trigger_enable() adds the trigger and takes it straight back out when the event cannot be enabled: list_add_tail_rcu(&data->list, &file->triggers); update_cond_flag(file); if (trace_event_trigger_enable_disable(file, 1) < 0) { list_del_rcu(&data->list); update_cond_flag(file); ret--; } so the list walk in hist_unregister_trigger() matches nothing, test stays NULL, and the ->free() that would call del_named_trigger() is skipped. out_unreg falls through to out_free, which frees the trigger anyway: BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in find_named_trigger+0xac/0xc0 Read of size 8 at addr ffff8880091d3160 by task init/1 find_named_trigger+0xac/0xc0 hist_register_trigger+0xc1/0xa00 event_hist_trigger_parse+0x3146/0x6af0 event_trigger_write+0xce/0x160 Freed by task 69: kfree+0x154/0x420 trigger_kthread_fn+0xfd/0x160 Leave the trigger where hist_unregister_trigger() can find it and let that undo the registration, which is the only code that knows all of what cmd_ops->init() took: the named list entry, the hist_pad reference, the reference on the trigger a named histogram is shared with, and the copied cmd_ops. It also pairs the failed trace_event_trigger_enable_disable(), whose sm_ref and buffered event reference are otherwise left behind. Since ->free() releases trigger_data and, for a trigger that does not share its histogram, hist_data with it, out_unreg can no longer fall through to out_free. For a trigger that does share, hist_register_trigger() has already destroyed the caller's hist_data, so the fall-through was reading freed memory there as well. Move the enable_timestamps check in hist_unregister_trigger() above the ->free() call for the same reason: hist_data does not outlive it once the trigger being removed is the one that owns it.

Published

Sep 25, 2026

Updated

Oct 21, 2026

EPSS

0.2% · 10th percentile

CWE

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