CVE-2026-74321
HighCVSS 7.5Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
Low risk41th percentile - higher than 41% of all known CVEs
Summary
In the Linux kernel, the __btrfs_run_delayed_refs() function of the Btrfs filesystem has an invalid pointer dereference. When btrfs_select_ref_head() returns -EAGAIN, the locked_ref variable remains an error pointer and is then used in spin_lock(), leading to dereferencing an invalid address. The fix resets locked_ref to NULL and increments the counter to avoid looping.
Risk Assessment
Invalid pointer dereference can lead to system crash or data corruption. It could be exploited for a DoS attack.
Recommendation
It is recommended to update the Linux kernel to a version containing the fix that properly handles the -EAGAIN error in __btrfs_run_delayed_refs().
Original NVD description (English source)
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: btrfs: fix invalid pointer dereference in __btrfs_run_delayed_refs() In the beginning of the loop, we try to obtain a locked delayed ref head, if 'locked_ref' is currently NULL, by calling btrfs_select_ref_head(), which can return an error pointer. If the error pointer is -EAGAIN we do a continue and go back to the beginning of the loop, which will not try again to call btrfs_select_ref_head() since 'locked_ref' is no longer NULL but it's ERR_PTR(-EAGAIN), and then we do: spin_lock(&locked_ref->lock); against a ERR_PTR(-EAGAIN) value, generating an invalid pointer dereference. Fix this by ensuring that 'locked_ref' is set to NULL when btrfs_select_ref_head() returns ERR_PTR(-EAGAIN) and incrementing 'count' as well, to prevent infinite looping. We do this by doing a goto to the bottom of the loop that already sets 'locked_ref' to NULL and does a cond_resched(), with an increment to 'count' right before the goto. These measures were in place before the refactoring in commit 0110a4c43451 ("btrfs: refactor __btrfs_run_delayed_refs loop") but were unintentionally lost afterwards.