Linux Kernel HID MT Timer Re-arming Vulnerability
CVE-2026-98859 Published on October 18, 2026
HID: multitouch: stop the release timer from being rearmed on remove
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
HID: multitouch: stop the release timer from being rearmed on remove
mt_remove() quiesces the sticky-finger timer before stopping the
hardware:
timer_delete_sync(&td->release_timer);
sysfs_remove_group(&hdev->dev.kobj, &mt_attribute_group);
hid_hw_stop(hdev);
timer_delete_sync() waits for a running callback and dequeues the timer,
but it does not stop the timer from being armed again. The transport is
still delivering reports at that point, and the report path rearms it:
if (app->quirks & MT_QUIRK_STICKY_FINGERS) {
if (td->mt_io_flags & MT_IO_SLOTS_MASK)
mod_timer(&td->release_timer,
jiffies + msecs_to_jiffies(100));
A report that arrives after timer_delete_sync() has returned therefore
leaves the timer queued. td is allocated with devm_kzalloc() against
hdev->dev, so it is freed when the driver is unbound, after mt_remove()
returns. When the timer fires afterwards, mt_expired_timeout()
dereferences the freed td:
struct mt_device *td = timer_container_of(td, t, release_timer);
struct hid_device *hdev = td->hdev;
if (test_and_set_bit_lock(MT_IO_FLAGS_RUNNING, &td->mt_io_flags))
Simply moving the teardown after hid_hw_stop() does not fix this on its
own, because mt_expired_timeout() calls mt_release_contacts(), which
walks hdev->inputs; the timer still has to be quiesced before
hid_hw_stop() tears the input devices down.
Use timer_shutdown_sync() instead, which additionally makes any later
mod_timer() a no-op, so neither ordering constraint has to be traded off
against the other. This is the final-teardown pattern the function was
introduced for, and hid-wiimote already uses it for the same reason.
Products Associated with CVE-2026-98859
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Affected Versions
Linux:- Version 4f4001bc76fd1a138a501fbd3d68cce72cbf96ce and below 1f1bd9a3117f082eb891c0986c4f0e04cd974c9a is affected.
- Version 4f4001bc76fd1a138a501fbd3d68cce72cbf96ce and below 0c19a6c1d25fd5ed66d1f80dc6f6e56cc1f0a787 is affected.
- Version 4f4001bc76fd1a138a501fbd3d68cce72cbf96ce and below a0125ca86e405b8a704e96157a6c10ca51087652 is affected.
- Version 4f4001bc76fd1a138a501fbd3d68cce72cbf96ce and below 5acb2dace582f061aab5e14c399ac9480315f44b is affected.
- Version 4.13 is affected.
- Before 4.13 is unaffected.
- Version 6.12.113, <= 6.12.* is unaffected.
- Version 6.18.56, <= 6.18.* is unaffected.
- Version 7.2.10, <= 7.2.* is unaffected.
- Version 7.3-rc6, <= * is unaffected.