AEGLIX vulnerability intelligence
CVE-2026-78118
HIGH · CVSS 7.0 · Awaiting Analysis
Published: 2026-10-21 · Updated: 2026-10-23 · Source: NVD
Stored catalog record
Source record retrieved 2026-10-28T10:20:22.140636+00:00. Scheduled imports handle updates; this page does not assert that the provider was queried just now.
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Vulnerability overview
The kernel helper z_waitq_head() (kernel/include/wait_q.h) reads the head of a thread wait queue, but on SMP systems it was called from several places without holding the scheduler spinlock _sched_spinlock that serializes wait-queue mutation. The consequential call site is z_timer_expiration_handler() in kernel/timer.c, which held only the timer subsystem lock timer_lock while reading timer->wait_q and then unpending, setting the return value of, and readying the thread it obtained. halt_thread() in kernel/sched.c removes an aborted thread from its wait queue while holding only _sched_spinlock, so the two paths are not mutually exclusive. When the last waiter is removed on another CPU inside that window, sys_dlist_peek_head() can return the list sentinel — a pointer into the k_timer object itself — typed as a struct k_thread * (with CONFIG_WAITQ_SCALABLE, rb_get_min() can return an arbitrary node of a tree being restructured), or it can return a pointer to a thread that has already been unpended and, for dynamically allocated threads, freed. The handler then calls unpend_thread_no_timeout(), which performs a sys_dlist_remove() through pointers read from that object, and arch_thread_return_value_set(), which writes unconditionally through the pointer. The result is out-of-bounds and use-after-free writes in supervisor context, plus scheduler state corruption; a milder outcome is a thread that has re-pended elsewhere being woken with a success return value from an unrelated blocking call. All of the primitives needed to drive the interleaving — k_timer_start(), k_timer_status_sync(), k_thread_create() and k_thread_abort() — are system calls, so with CONFIG_USERSPACE enabled an unprivileged user-mode thread can attempt the race against kernel-owned data. Exploitation requires a multi-CPU build (CONFIG_MP_MAX_NUM_CPUS greater than one; the affected region is a no-op on uniprocessor targets), local code execution, and winning a narrow timing window, so the practical outcome is most often a kernel crash rather than controlled corruption. The fix splits the helper into z_waitq_head_locked() for callers that already hold the scheduler spinlock and a z_waitq_head() that acquires it, and brings the timer expiration handler's head read, unpend and ready under a single LOCK_SCHED_SPINLOCK region.
Patch review priority
Assess exposure and vendor guidance
- No higher-priority signal is available in the current stored evidence.
FIRST EPSS: 0.10% · percentile 1.0 · score date 2026-10-27.
EPSS estimates probability of exploitation in the next 30 days. It does not measure your exposure or prove exploitation. The elevated threshold is 10%; CISA KEV takes precedence. About FIRST EPSS ↗
Severity and scoring
- CVSS score
- 7.0 · HIGH
- CVSS version
- 3.1
- CVSS vector
- CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- Weaknesses
- CWE-362
CVSS measures technical severity; it does not establish whether this vulnerability is being exploited in your environment.
Known exploitation and remediation
Not listed in the CISA catalog retrieved for this record. This does not establish that exploitation has not occurred.
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Affected products and versions
NVD has not supplied affected-version configurations for this record. Check the vendor references below.