[PATCH] watchdog: pretimeout: Fix UAF in watchdog_unregister_governor()

From: Tzung-Bi Shih

Date: Tue Jul 07 2026 - 06:25:06 EST


When a watchdog governor is unregistered, it updates existing watchdog
devices that were using this governor by falling back to `default_gov`.

If the governor being unregistered is currently set as `default_gov`,
the `default_gov` is never cleared. This leads to 2 use-after-free
issues:
1. New watchdog devices registered after this point will inherit the
dangling `default_gov`.
2. Existing watchdog devices using the unregistered governor will have
their `wdd->gov` reassigned to the dangling `default_gov`.

Fix the UAF by clearing `default_gov` if it matches the governor being
unregistered.

Fixes: da0d12ff2b82 ("watchdog: pretimeout: add panic pretimeout governor")
Signed-off-by: Tzung-Bi Shih <tzungbi@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
drivers/watchdog/watchdog_pretimeout.c | 2 ++
1 file changed, 2 insertions(+)

diff --git a/drivers/watchdog/watchdog_pretimeout.c b/drivers/watchdog/watchdog_pretimeout.c
index 19eb2ed2c7cb..02e09b9e396d 100644
--- a/drivers/watchdog/watchdog_pretimeout.c
+++ b/drivers/watchdog/watchdog_pretimeout.c
@@ -167,6 +167,8 @@ void watchdog_unregister_governor(struct watchdog_governor *gov)
}

spin_lock_irq(&pretimeout_lock);
+ if (default_gov == gov)
+ default_gov = NULL;
list_for_each_entry(p, &pretimeout_list, entry)
if (p->wdd->gov == gov)
p->wdd->gov = default_gov;
--
2.55.0.rc2.803.g1fd1e6609c-goog