Vulnerability in Linux

CVE-2026-99011

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: Bluetooth: SCO: serialise sco_conn lifetime against sco_recv_scodata() sco_recv_scodata() upgrades the weak hcon->sco_data back-pointer to a strong reference under hdev->lock: hci_dev_lock(hdev); hcon = hci_conn_hash_lookup_handle(hdev, handle); ... conn = sco_conn_hold_unless_zero(hcon->sco_data); hci_dev_unlock(hdev); but the pointer is cleared from the other side without that lock. When the last sco_conn reference is dropped, sco_conn_free() ran conn->hcon->sco_data = NULL; with no hdev->lock held, so the RX path could read hcon->sco_data and call kref_get_unless_zero() on an sco_conn that was concurrently freed: BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in sco_conn_hold_unless_zero+0xbe/0x160 Write of size 4 by task kworker/u17:0 Workqueue: hci0 hci_rx_work Call Trace: sco_conn_hold_unless_zero+0xbe/0x160 sco_recv_scodata+0x13f/0x490 hci_rx_work+0x3af/0x730 kref_get_unless_zero() only guards against a zero refcount, not against the backing memory already being freed. Give hcon->sco_data an actual reference on the sco_conn it points to, so the object cannot be freed while the pointer is still installed, and only clear and drop it from sco_conn_del(), which runs under hdev->lock (its callers, sco_connect_cfm() and sco_disconn_cfm(), hold it). The reader in sco_recv_scodata() also takes hdev->lock, so the store and the read are now serialised: the RX path either observes NULL or a reference that is guaranteed to stay valid until it drops its own. sco_conn_add() no longer hands its kref_init() reference to the caller as the connection's only reference; that initial reference is the one owned by hcon->sco_data, and callers get their own via sco_conn_hold(). Because the sco_conn can now outlive the socket (the association keeps it alive until the link goes down), the hci_conn can no longer be dropped from sco_conn_free() without regressing socket close: closing a connected SCO socket must still tear the link down. Move hci_conn ownership to the socket instead: __sco_chan_add() takes an hci_conn reference and it is released from sco_chan_del() and sco_sock_destruct(), exactly once. The sco_conn no longer owns an hci_conn reference, so sco_conn_add() stops consuming one and sco_connect() drops the hci_connect_sco() reference on every path; sco_connect_cfm() no longer needs its hci_conn_hold() dance.

Published 2026-10-23.