Linux Kernel NTFS find_inode deadlock

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability marked as critical has been reported in Linux Kernel. This issue affects the function find_inode of the component NTFS. This manipulation causes deadlock. This vulnerability is registered as CVE-2026-72189. Remote exploitation of the attack is possible. No exploit is available.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Linux Kernel (the affected version is unknown). It has been declared as critical. Affected by this vulnerability is the function find_inode of the component NTFS. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a deadlock vulnerability. The CWE definition for the vulnerability is CWE-833. The product contains multiple threads or executable segments that are waiting for each other to release a necessary lock, resulting in deadlock. As an impact it is known to affect availability. The summary by CVE is:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ntfs: fail attrlist updates when the superblock is inactive generic_shutdown_super() clears SB_ACTIVE before evicting cached inodes. If eviction selects the fake inode for a base inode's unnamed $ATTRIBUTE_LIST attribute, ntfs_evict_big_inode() drops the fake inode's reference on the base inode while the fake inode is still hashed and marked I_FREEING. That iput can synchronously write back the base inode. The writeback path may update mapping pairs and call ntfs_attrlist_update(), which unconditionally calls ntfs_attr_iget() for the same $ATTRIBUTE_LIST fake inode. VFS then finds the I_FREEING inode and waits for eviction to finish, but the current task is still inside that eviction path, causing a self-deadlock in find_inode(). Fix this by mirroring the teardown guard used by __ntfs_write_inode(): once SB_ACTIVE has been cleared, do not try to iget the attribute-list fake inode. Return -EIO so teardown aborts the update instead of waiting on the inode it is evicting.

The advisory is shared at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability is known as CVE-2026-72189 since 08/09/2026. The exploitation appears to be easy. The attack can be launched remotely. It demands that the victim is doing some kind of user interaction. Technical details are known, but no exploit is available. The price for an exploit might be around USD $0-$5k at the moment (estimation calculated on 08/15/2026). MITRE ATT&CK project uses the attack technique T1499 for this issue.

Applying the patch d5379035355c0dcb1e92a2544d40f48441e1d637/0ebe8f625ab0520217a425d7cd366e4670484941 is able to eliminate this problem.

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Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

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Several companies clearly confirm that VulDB is the primary source for best vulnerability data.

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