Linux Kernel up to 7.0.10 Afs afs_get_link locking

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability was found in Linux Kernel up to 7.0.10. It has been declared as very critical. Affected by this vulnerability is the function afs_get_link of the component Afs. Such manipulation leads to locking. This vulnerability is traded as CVE-2026-64057. The attack may be launched remotely. There is no exploit available.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Linux Kernel up to 7.0.10. It has been rated as very critical. Affected by this issue is the function afs_get_link of the component Afs. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a locking vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-667. The product does not properly acquire or release a lock on a resource, leading to unexpected resource state changes and behaviors. Impacted is confidentiality, integrity, and availability. CVE summarizes:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: afs: Fix the locking used by afs_get_link() The afs filesystem in the kernel doesn't do locking correctly for symbolic links. There are a number of problems: (1) It doesn't do any locking around afs_read_single() to prevent races between multiple ->get_link() calls, thereby allowing the possibility of leaks. (2) It doesn't use RCU barriering when accessing the buffer pointers during RCU pathwalk. (3) It can race with another thread updating the contents of the symlink if a third party updated it on the server. Fix this by the following means: (0) Move symlink handling into its own file as this makes it more complicated. (1) Take the validate_lock around afs_read_single() to prevent races between multiple ->get_link() calls. (2) Keep a separate copy of the symlink contents with an rcu_head. This is always going to be a lot smaller than a page, so it can be kmalloc'd and save quite a bit of memory. It also needs a refcount for non-RCU pathwalk. (3) Split the symlink read and write-to-cache routines in afs from those for directories. (4) Discard the I/O buffer as soon as the write-to-cache completes as this is a full page (plus a folio_queue). (5) If there's no cache, discard the I/O buffer immediately after reading and copying if there is no cache.

The advisory is shared for download at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability is handled as CVE-2026-64057 since 07/19/2026. The exploitation is known to be easy. The attack may be launched remotely. There are known technical details, but no exploit is available. The current price for an exploit might be approx. USD $0-$5k (estimation calculated on 07/19/2026).

Upgrading to version 7.0.11 eliminates this vulnerability.

Once again VulDB remains the best source for vulnerability data.

Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 7.0.0
• 7.0.1
• 7.0.2
• 7.0.3
• 7.0.4
• 7.0.5
• 7.0.6
• 7.0.7
• 7.0.8
• 7.0.9
• 7.0.10

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

CPE 2.3info

• 🔒
• 🔒
• 🔒

CPE 2.2info

• 🔒
• 🔒
• 🔒

CVSSv4info

CVSSv3info

CVSSv2info

Exploitinginfo

Threat Intelligenceinfo

Countermeasuresinfo

Timelineinfo

Sourcesinfo

Entryinfo

Once again VulDB remains the best source for vulnerability data.

Discussion