---
license: mit
task_categories:
  - text-classification
language:
  - en
tags:
  - linux-kernel
  - security
  - vulnerabilities
  - code
  - bugs
  - software-engineering
pretty_name: Linux Kernel Vulnerability Dataset
size_categories:
  - 100K<n<1M
---

# Linux Kernel Vulnerability Dataset

**125,183 bug-introducing commits** mined from 20 years of Linux kernel git history (2005-2025).

## Dataset Description

This dataset maps every kernel bug fix with a `Fixes:` tag back to the commit that introduced the bug. It enables research on:

- **Vulnerability detection**: Train models to identify bug-introducing commits
- **Bug lifetime analysis**: Study how long different bug types persist
- **Subsystem risk assessment**: Identify which kernel subsystems have the longest-lived bugs
- **Developer patterns**: Analyze who introduces and fixes bugs

### Key Statistics

| Metric | Value |
|--------|-------|
| Total bug-fix pairs | 125,183 |
| Valid records (0 < lifetime < 27 years) | 123,696 |
| Average bug lifetime | 2.1 years |
| Median bug lifetime | 0.7 years |
| Longest-lived bug | 20.7 years |
| Bugs hiding 5+ years | 13.5% |
| Unique fixing commits | 119,449 |
| Unique bug-introducing authors | 9,159 |
| With CVE ID | 158 |
| With Cc: stable | 27,875 (22%) |

## Dataset Structure

### Data Fields

| Column | Type | Description |
|--------|------|-------------|
| `fixing_commit` | string | SHA of the commit that fixed the bug |
| `introducing_commit` | string | SHA of the commit that introduced the bug |
| `lifetime_days` | int | Days between introduction and fix |
| `subsystem` | string | Kernel subsystem (networking, drivers, fs, etc.) |
| `bug_type` | string | Detected bug type (race-condition, null-deref, etc.) |
| `fix_subject` | string | Commit message subject of the fix |
| `fixing_date` | datetime | When the fix was committed |
| `introducing_date` | datetime | When the bug was introduced |
| `files_changed` | string | Files modified in introducing commit |
| `insertions` | int | Lines added in introducing commit |
| `deletions` | int | Lines removed in introducing commit |
| `cve_id` | string | CVE ID if mentioned in fix commit (nullable) |
| `cc_stable` | bool | Whether fix was tagged for stable backport |
| `fix_author` | string | Author of the fix |
| `intro_author` | string | Author who introduced the bug |

### Subsystem Distribution

| Subsystem | Count | Avg Lifetime |
|-----------|-------|--------------|
| drivers | 38,412 | 2.3 years |
| networking | 6,079 | 2.9 years |
| gpu | 5,212 | 1.4 years |
| filesystem | 4,891 | 2.6 years |
| sound | 3,847 | 2.1 years |
| usb | 2,505 | 3.5 years |
| memory | 2,459 | 1.8 years |
| bpf | 959 | 1.1 years |

### Bug Type Distribution

| Bug Type | Count | Avg Lifetime |
|----------|-------|--------------|
| null-deref | 4,931 | 2.2 years |
| use-after-free | 2,963 | 3.2 years |
| memory-leak | 2,846 | 3.1 years |
| refcount | 2,209 | 2.8 years |
| deadlock | 1,683 | 2.2 years |
| race-condition | 1,188 | 5.1 years |
| buffer-overflow | 399 | 3.1 years |
| integer-overflow | 298 | 3.9 years |

## Collection Methodology

### Mining Process

1. Clone Linux kernel repository at v6.19-rc3
2. Run `git log --grep="Fixes:"` to find all fixing commits
3. Extract the referenced commit hash from each `Fixes:` tag using regex
4. Retrieve metadata (dates, authors, files) from both commits
5. Classify subsystem from file paths using 70+ regex patterns
6. Detect bug type from commit message keywords
7. Calculate lifetime as `fixing_date - introducing_date`

### Extraction Code

```python
import re

def extract_fixes_tag(commit_msg: str) -> str | None:
    """Extract the commit ID from a Fixes: tag"""
    pattern = r'Fixes:\s*([a-f0-9]{12,40})'
    match = re.search(pattern, commit_msg, re.IGNORECASE)
    return match.group(1) if match else None
```

### Filtering

- Excluded commits where `Fixes:` tag points to non-existent hash
- Excluded merge commits
- For lifetime analysis: excluded same-day fixes (lifetime_days = 0)
- For lifetime analysis: excluded outliers (lifetime > 10,000 days)

## Limitations

- **Selection bias**: Only ~28% of fix commits use `Fixes:` tags. Well-documented bugs (likely more serious) are overrepresented.
- **Mainline only**: Doesn't include bugs fixed only in stable branches or vendor kernels.
- **Subsystem classification**: Heuristic-based on file paths; some bugs span multiple subsystems.
- **Bug type detection**: Keyword-based; many bugs classified as "unknown".
- **Timestamp accuracy**: Uses author dates, not commit dates. Rebasing can skew.

## Intended Uses

### Recommended

- Training vulnerability detection models (e.g., VulnBERT)
- Analyzing bug lifetime patterns across subsystems
- Studying the evolution of kernel security over time
- Research on code review and testing effectiveness

### Out of Scope

- Direct exploit development (commits don't include full code context)
- Claiming completeness of kernel vulnerability data

## Citation

```bibtex
@dataset{qu2026kernelvuln,
  author = {Qu, Jenny Guanni},
  title = {Linux Kernel Vulnerability Dataset},
  year = {2026},
  publisher = {HuggingFace},
  url = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/quguanni/kernel-vuln-dataset}
}
```

## License

MIT License

## Contact

- **Author**: Jenny Guanni Qu
- **Email**: jenny@pebblebed.com
- **Blog post**: [Kernel bugs hide for 2 years on average](https://pebblebed.com/blog/kernel-bugs)