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kernel-vuln-dataset

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linux-kernel
security
vulnerabilities
code
bugs
software-engineering
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metadata
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 

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 

@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

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