CVE-2026-97936

A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's tracing subsystem. A local user with permissions to configure event triggers could cause a Denial of Service (DoS) or memory corruption by applying a stacktrace modifier to an unsupported field. Because the kernel fails to validate the field type, it performs an unbounded memory copy into a fixed-size buffer. This flaw corrupts adjacent kernel memory, resulting in an immediate system crash.

This vulnerability is rated as having a Moderate severity because exploitation requires local access with elevated privileges to write to the kernel event tracing interface, limiting the attack surface to trusted or administrative users. In default Red Hat Enterprise Linux environments, access to tracefs triggers is restricted to administrative accounts, preventing unprivileged local users from triggering the flaw. While improper validation of histogram modifiers can result in kernel memory corruption and an immediate system crash, the high privilege prerequisite limits the overall blast radius. Additionally, earlier enterprise releases, including RHEL 8 and 9, lack the affected tracing code and remain unaffected.

The CVSS score(s) listed for this vulnerability do not reflect the associated product's status, and are included for informational purposes to better understand the severity of this vulnerability.