CVE-2026-98286

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

drop monitor: use timer shutdown sync() to prevent timer rearming during teardown

In drop monitor teardown paths (net dm trace off set(), net dm hw monitor stop(), and error unwind paths in net dm trace on set() and net dm hw monitor start()), per-CPU timers are stopped using timer delete sync() followed by cancel work sync().

However, there is a circular dependency between send timer and dm alert work:

If dm alert work is running concurrently while timer delete sync() executes on another CPU, an allocation failure in the worker will re-arm the timer after timer delete sync() has already returned. Once cancel work sync() completes and module put() is called, the timer remains active in the timer wheel. If the module is then unloaded, the timer will fire and execute sched send work() in freed memory, triggering a kernel panic / use-after-free.

Switch from timer delete sync() to timer shutdown sync(). This guarantees that any in-flight timer handler has finished and prevents subsequent re-arming attempts from running workers from succeeding. When monitoring is restarted later, timer setup() is invoked, which cleanly re-initializes the timer.