Improper Update of Reference Count Affecting kernel-64k package, versions *

Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream kernel-64k package and not the kernel-64k package as distributed by RHEL. See How to fix? for RHEL:10 relevant fixed versions and status.

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

Bluetooth: SCO: give the socket its own sco_conn reference

sco_conn_del() drops a reference it does not own. It takes one transient reference via sco_conn_hold_unless_zero() and releases it with the sco_conn_put() that follows sco_sock_hold(); the additional put in the !sk branch releases a second one:

conn = sco_conn_hold_unless_zero(conn);
...
sk = sco_sock_hold(conn);
sco_conn_unlock(conn);
sco_conn_put(conn);

if (!sk) {
        sco_conn_put(conn);
        return;
}

When close() races the controller's Disconnection Complete, sco_chan_del() clears conn->sk and drops the socket's reference while sco_conn_del() is running. sco_conn_del() then sees sk == NULL, its own put drops the count to zero and frees the conn, and the second put writes to the freed kref:

BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in sco_conn_put.part.0+0x1a/0x190
Write of size 4 at addr ffff8881099dec74 by task kworker/u17:3/413
Workqueue: hci1 hci_rx_work
Call Trace:
 sco_conn_put.part.0+0x1a/0x190
 hci_disconn_complete_evt+0x1ee/0x3e0
 hci_event_packet+0x54a/0x650
 hci_rx_work+0x321/0x3d0
Allocated by task 413:
 sco_conn_add+0x72/0x1a0
 sco_connect_cfm+0x88/0x670
Freed by task 413:
 sco_conn_del.isra.0+0x3f/0xf0
 hci_disconn_complete_evt+0x1ee/0x3e0
refcount_t: underflow; use-after-free.

The root cause is that the socket stores the connection without holding a reference of its own. __sco_chan_add() does:

sco_pi(sk)->conn = conn;

so the socket borrows whatever reference its caller happened to hold, and the callers paper over that with ad-hoc holds and puts. Give the socket a counted reference instead: __sco_chan_add() takes one and it is released together with the channel (sco_chan_del()) and in sco_sock_destruct(). With the socket holding its own reference, sco_conn_del() no longer needs the extra put and the redundant hold in sco_conn_ready() goes away.

Making the socket own its reference means the connection is now actually freed on the error paths of sco_connect() where it used to leak, which in turn runs sco_conn_free() and its hci_conn_drop(conn->hcon). To keep the hci_conn accounting balanced, make that ownership explicit as well: sco_conn_add() consumes one hci_conn reference and the sco_conn owns it for its lifetime. sco_connect() hands over the reference returned by hci_connect_sco() and no longer drops it on the error paths; sco_connect_cfm(), which is not given a reference, takes one with hci_conn_hold() before handing it to sco_conn_add() (and drops it again if the allocation fails); and the explicit hci_conn_hold() in sco_conn_ready() is removed. Every reference then has a single, clear owner.

• https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2525439
• https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-80683
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/8fe627192fa5da7157f9a48608f13c04b6373e43
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/a33bc07b4730b6cd5681ac77d18ae0de3e739690
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/abd93c85c8667add738ee82aeab95dd9fc8265a2