Use-after-free in Linux kernel - CVE-2026-98534

Vulnerability identifier: #VU156836

CSH Severity: Low

CVSS v4: 5.6 [CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:H/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N]

CVE-ID: CVE-2026-98534

CWE-ID: CWE-416

Exploitation vector: Local access

Exploit availability: No public exploit available

The vulnerability allows a local privileged user to potentially cause a denial of service by triggering a kernel use-after-free.

The vulnerability exists due to use-after-free in the Linux kernel's Integrity Policy Enforcement (IPE) policy-loading and auditing code when a newly published policy is deleted concurrently with its load audit. A local privileged user can race policy loading with policy deletion to cause ipe_audit_policy_load() to access freed policy memory, potentially crashing the kernel.

Linux kernel
Ubuntu
linux (Ubuntu package)
linux-aws (Ubuntu package)
linux-gcp (Ubuntu package)
linux-oracle (Ubuntu package)
linux-ibm (Ubuntu package)
linux-hwe-7.0 (Ubuntu package)
linux-oem-7.0 (Ubuntu package)

Install security update from vendor's repository.

Linux kernel - update to 7.0 rc3
linux (Ubuntu package) - update to 7.0.0-42.42
linux-aws (Ubuntu package) - update to 7.0.0-1016.17
linux-gcp (Ubuntu package) - update to 7.0.0-1016.18
linux-oracle (Ubuntu package) - update to 7.0.0-1015.16
linux-ibm (Ubuntu package) - update to 7.0.0-1017.17
linux-hwe-7.0 (Ubuntu package) - update to 7.0.0-42.42~24.04.1
linux-oem-7.0 (Ubuntu package) - update to 7.0.0-1017.17

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/48f7d0233c3cc8d986d1177d0e5dd4af435e7265
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/9814077275eca36ebf8d510d2f076d235ff9f51a
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b72d6c72b4bfbc021e8e127fa13e0f27d09be737
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/e9015d32752fa228ef2f0e07fd93fc53a4a4c723

• Use-after-free in Linux kernel ipe
• Ubuntu update for linux-oem-7.0
• Ubuntu update for linux, linux-aws, linux-gcp and more