Service interruption via stale ext4 extent cache
Published May 27, 2026 · Updated May 27, 2026
Filesystem state inconsistency in Linux Kernel allows local users to interrupt service through buffered writes to an ext4 file. After a failed split zeroes an unwritten extent, ext4_map_create_blocks() updates only part of the extent-status tree and leaves a stale unwritten entry. Reachability requires an extent-based ext4 file, a buffered write with dioread_nolock disabled, and temporary space exhaustion during the first split.
Summary
What happened
Filesystem state inconsistency in Linux Kernel allows local users to interrupt service through buffered writes to an ext4 file. After a failed split zeroes an unwritten extent, ext4_map_create_blocks() updates only part of the extent-status tree and leaves a stale unwritten entry. Reachability requires an extent-based ext4 file, a buffered write with dioread_nolock disabled, and temporary space exhaustion during the first split.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2026-45892
- Published
- May 27, 2026
- Updated
- May 27, 2026
- Vendor
- The Linux Kernel Organization
- Product
- Linux Kernel
- Classifications
- T1499
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- May 27, 2026CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- May 27, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
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Is a vulnerable build present?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=0 <6.12.75
- Affected versionversion=0 <6.18.14
- Affected versionversion=0 <6.19.4
- Affected versionversion=0 <6.6.130
- Affected versionversion=1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 <6d882ea3b0931b43530d44149b79fcd4ffc13030
- Affected versionversion=1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 <a1b962a821e7a52d48212ae269b45808b4411267
- Affected versionversion=1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 <c2ee51d684adca7645e4aa74adca13f6750390bc
- Affected versionversion=1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 <d8ee559fccdef713f058cfe5f2c03dc9b18be3b1
- Affected versionversion=1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 <f0931a5c17005a0c4fc35bd1a001245effc3354b
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Published CVSS scores
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Attacks
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Your stack
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