CVE-2026-72438 (GCVE-0-2026-72438)

Vulnerability from cvelistv5 – Published: 2026-08-15 05:56 – Updated: 2026-09-21 13:13
VLAI
Title
md/raid10: fix writes_pending and barrier reference leaks on discard failures
Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: md/raid10: fix writes_pending and barrier reference leaks on discard failures raid10_make_request() acquires a writes_pending reference with md_write_start() before calling raid10_handle_discard(). Several failure paths in raid10_handle_discard() complete the bio and return without releasing the corresponding reference, causing md_write_end() to be skipped. Call md_write_end() before returning from these failure paths to keep writes_pending accounting balanced. Additionally, discard split allocation failures can occur after wait_barrier() succeeds. Those paths return without calling allow_barrier(), leaking the associated barrier reference. Release the barrier before returning from those paths.
Severity
7.5 (High)
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Assigner
References
Impacted products
Vendor Product Version CPE status
Linux Linux Affected: c9aa889b035fca4598ae985a0f0c76ebbb547ad2 , < fea33968592559a55a3f5a96a6386bebcaf988a8 (git)
Affected: c9aa889b035fca4598ae985a0f0c76ebbb547ad2 , < 11b35d1906a7277a3d64afe34224133b44327328 (git)
Affected: c9aa889b035fca4598ae985a0f0c76ebbb547ad2 , < d1324b41dabd26787559efaeb430643c627c1eb0 (git)
Affected: c9aa889b035fca4598ae985a0f0c76ebbb547ad2 , < 393d687131d8aa8c7e4de2cb494438e145d20fc2 (git)
Affected: 39db562b3fedb93978a7e42dd216b306740959f8 (git)
Affected: 5.15.111 , < 5.16 (semver)
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Linux Linux Affected: 5.17
Unaffected: 0 , < 5.17 (semver)
Unaffected: 6.12.111 , ≤ 6.12.* (semver)
Unaffected: 6.18.53 , ≤ 6.18.* (semver)
Unaffected: 7.1.5 , ≤ 7.1.* (semver)
Unaffected: 7.2 , ≤ * (original_commit_for_fix)
guessed Create a notification for this product.
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          "lang": "en",
          "value": "In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:\n\nmd/raid10: fix writes_pending and barrier reference leaks on discard failures\n\nraid10_make_request() acquires a writes_pending reference with\nmd_write_start() before calling raid10_handle_discard(). Several failure\npaths in raid10_handle_discard() complete the bio and return without\nreleasing the corresponding reference, causing md_write_end() to be\nskipped.\n\nCall md_write_end() before returning from these failure paths to keep\nwrites_pending accounting balanced.\n\nAdditionally, discard split allocation failures can occur after\nwait_barrier() succeeds. Those paths return without calling\nallow_barrier(), leaking the associated barrier reference.\n\nRelease the barrier before returning from those paths."
        }
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              "value": "AV:N - RAID10 is commonly used on network-facing storage servers; discard/TRIM/UNMAP from remote iSCSI initiators or NFS clients reaches raid10_make_request() through the block layer without local host login.\nAC:L - An attacker can reliably trigger the bug by issuing large, stripe-misaligned discards to force bio_split() and inducing GFP_NOIO allocation failure via self-created memory pressure; no rare timing or victim state is required.\nPR:N - Exploitation requires only network reachability to a storage service that accepts discard/UNMAP/DEALLOCATE on the RAID10 LUN or exported filesystem, not Linux host administrator privileges or capabilities.\nUI:N - Discard, TRIM, punch-hole, and SCSI UNMAP are programmatic storage operations that do not require any interactive action by a human victim beyond normal automated I/O.\nS:U - The leaked writes_pending and barrier/nr_pending counters only corrupt RAID10/md internal accounting within the kernel storage stack and do not cross VM, container, or IOMMU security boundaries.\nC:N - The flaw is reference-count leakage on writes_pending and nr_pending with no out-of-bounds access, use-after-free, or memory disclosure; no confidential data is exposed.\nI:N - No memory corruption or unauthorized modification of user or filesystem data occurs; impact is limited to incorrect internal IO/barrier accounting rather than integrity compromise.\nA:H - Leaked nr_pending prevents raise_barrier() and freeze_array() from ever completing, causing indefinite kernel thread hangs during recovery/reshape/error handling and persistent denial of storage service on the array."
            }
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    "dateReserved": "2026-08-09T03:40:39.929Z",
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      "id": "CVE-2026-72438",
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      "source": "SUSE CSAF VEX",
      "status": "interim",
      "title": "SUSE CVE CVE-2026-72438",
      "url": "https://ftp.suse.com/pub/projects/security/csaf-vex/cve-2026-72438.json",
      "version": "5"
    }
  }
}



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Forecast uses a logistic model when the trend is rising, or an exponential decay model when the trend is falling. Fitted via linearized least squares.

Sightings

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Nomenclature

  • Seen: The vulnerability was mentioned, discussed, or observed by the user.
  • Confirmed: The vulnerability has been validated from an analyst's perspective.
  • Published Proof of Concept: A public proof of concept is available for this vulnerability.
  • Exploited: The vulnerability was observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
  • Patched: The vulnerability was observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.
  • Not exploited: The vulnerability was not observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
  • Not confirmed: The user expressed doubt about the validity of the vulnerability.
  • Not patched: The vulnerability was not observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.



Related by attack behaviour

Vulnerabilities whose description is nearest to this one in the vector space of the CIRCL/vulnerability-attack-technique-biencoder model. This is a similarity search over the bi-encoder space (plain cosine), not a classification, and it has no measured accuracy.