In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: rtc: spear: initialize IRQ state before requesting alarm IRQ devm_request_irq()… (CVE-2026-98847)

The Linux kernel vulnerability CVE-2026-98847 involves the RTC spear driver where the interrupt request (IRQ) state was not properly initialized before the alarm IRQ was requested. Because devm_request_irq() enables the interrupt before returning, the interrupt handler could execute while the device was still being initialized, leading to potential race conditions or undefined behavior. The resolution was to initialize the memory-mapped I/O (MMIO) address and spinlock before requesting the alarm IRQ to ensure safe interrupt handling during device initialization.

The vulnerability could lead to the interrupt handler running prematurely during device initialization, which may cause race conditions or instability in the kernel's RTC spear driver. No specific exploitation details or impacts such as privilege escalation or denial of service are provided.

A fix has been applied to the Linux kernel to initialize the IRQ state before requesting the alarm IRQ. Users should update to the fixed kernel version once available. Since this is a kernel-level fix, applying the official kernel update is the recommended remediation.