Service interruption via stale-pipe error handling
Published Oct 28, 2026 · Updated Oct 28, 2026
A race in Linux autofs allows local users to interrupt shared automount service via filesystem lookups during a daemon restart. In fs/autofs/waitq.c, autofs_notify_daemon() handles a delayed EPIPE from a replaced notification pipe by entering catatonic mode without checking pipe identity, closing the replacement pipe and releasing its wait queues. Unprivileged lookups must fill the old pipe during a legitimate restart; pending and subsequent lookups fail with ENOENT, without demonstrated kernel crash, memory corruption, disclosure, or privilege escalation.
Summary
What happened
A race in Linux autofs allows local users to interrupt shared automount service via filesystem lookups during a daemon restart. In fs/autofs/waitq.c, autofs_notify_daemon() handles a delayed EPIPE from a replaced notification pipe by entering catatonic mode without checking pipe identity, closing the replacement pipe and releasing its wait queues. Unprivileged lookups must fill the old pipe during a legitimate restart; pending and subsequent lookups fail with ENOENT, without demonstrated kernel crash, memory corruption, disclosure, or privilege escalation.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2026-99181
- Published
- Oct 28, 2026
- Updated
- Oct 28, 2026
- Vendor
- The Linux Kernel Organization
- Product
- Linux
- Classifications
- T1499
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Oct 28, 2026CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Oct 28, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=2.6.28
- Affected versionversion=8d7b48e0bc5fa01a818eac713d4cb0763090cd0e <1a177064f501ed4b67873a43aae5d5bdb18b3704
- Affected versionversion=8d7b48e0bc5fa01a818eac713d4cb0763090cd0e <65676cd4203c0e41a94caf54080a7f0a95434bda
- Affected versionversion=8d7b48e0bc5fa01a818eac713d4cb0763090cd0e <fb296391f685d82dbb93621a970fb234cea45280
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Published CVSS scores
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Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Activity data is delayed. The latest report is Sep 28, 2026.
Weakness, pattern, technique
Public exploit references
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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