CVE-2026-90066: Linux

EPSS: 0.2% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: samples/ftrace: Fix kthread_stop() on ERR_PTR in ftrace-direct-multi-modify ftrace_direct_multi_init() assigns kthread_run()'s return value to simple_tsk without an IS_ERR() check. When kthread_run() fails it returns ERR_PTR(-ENOMEM), but init still returns 0, so the module loads with simple_tsk holding an error pointer. On unload, ftrace_direct_multi_exit() then passes that ERR_PTR to kthread_stop(), leading to a null-pointer-dereference. Check the return value of kthread_run() with IS_ERR(); on failure, unregister the ftrace direct call and propagate the error code.

Affected products

• Linux Linux: from 5.16, before 6.6.157 (fixed in 6.6.157); from 6.7, before 6.12.110 (fixed in 6.12.110); from 6.13, before 6.18.52 (fixed in 6.18.52); from 6.19, before 7.2.6 (fixed in 7.2.6)

Published 2026-09-17. Last modified 2026-09-17.