CVE-2026-98451 in Linux
Summary
by MITRE • 10/18/2026
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
smb: client: use finish_no_open() for non-regular inodes
An O_CREAT open can find an existing symlink or another non-regular inode. cifs_atomic_open() calls finish_open() on it and attaches a cifsFileInfo. Symlink inodes have no CIFS release operation, so the dentry reference held by cifsFileInfo is leaked. FMODE_OPENED also prevents the VFS from following the symlink.
Track whether cifs_do_create() returned an open server handle. For non-regular inodes, close the handle if present, remove the pending open, and call finish_no_open() so the VFS can continue the lookup. Do not set FMODE_CREATED unless a regular file was opened. For O_NOFOLLOW with __O_REGULAR, return -ELOOP before the VFS's -EFTYPE check.
Defer closing a legacy POSIX handle on a non-regular inode until after inode lookup. This avoids closing it again if lookup fails.
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