CVE-2026-53180

About vulnerability

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: timers/migration: Fix livelock in tmigr_handle_remote_up() tmigr_handle_remote_cpu() skips timer_expire_remote() when cpu == smp_processor_id(), assuming the local softirq path already handled this CPU’s timers. This assumption is wrong because jiffies can advance after the handling of the CPU’s global timers in run_timer_base(BASE_GLOBAL) and before tmigr_handle_remote() evaluates the expiry times. As a consequence a timer which expires after the CPU local timer wheel advanced and becomes expired in the remote handling is ignored and the callback is never invoked and removed from the timer wheel. What’s worse is that fetch_next_timer_interrupt_remote() keeps reporting it as expired, and the event is re-queued with expires == now on each iteration. The goto-again loop spins indefinitely. Fix this by calling timer_expire_remote() unconditionally. That’s minimal overhead for the common case as __run_timer_base() returns immediately if there is nothing to expire in the local wheel. [ tglx: Amend change log and add a comment ] A flaw was found in the Linux kernel’s timer migration handling. An incorrect assumption in the tmigr_handle_remote_cpu() function regarding local softirq path handling of CPU timers can lead to a livelock. This occurs when a timer expires after the local timer wheel advances but before remote handling evaluates expiry times, causing the timer to be ignored and repeatedly re-queued. This can result in an indefinite loop, leading to a Denial of Service (DoS) condition.

Live-patch status from KernelCare for each operating system.