CVE-2026-72438

HighCVSS 7.5

Published: 15/08/2026(UTC)Updated: 17/08/2026(UTC)Translated: 15/08/2026(UTC)NVD NIST

Exploitation Probability (EPSS)

Low risk

0.36%

29th percentile - higher than 29% of all known CVEs

Summary

In the Linux kernel, the md/raid10 module has a vulnerability involving writes_pending and barrier reference leaks on discard failures. Some error paths in raid10_handle_discard() complete the bio without calling md_write_end() or allow_barrier(), leading to unbalanced counters.

Risk Assessment

Reference leaks may lead to incorrect write mechanism behavior, potentially resulting in data loss or system crash.

Recommendation

Apply a Linux kernel update containing the fix that adds md_write_end() and allow_barrier() calls in error paths.

Original NVD description (English source)

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.