What is CVE-2018-16862?

CVE-2018-16862 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux Kernel, classified under Information Disclosure. CVSS score: 5.3/10. Published 2018-11-26.

How severe is CVE-2018-16862?

Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.3 out of 10.

Information disclosure in Linux Kernel

CVE-2018-16862

A security flaw was found in the Linux kernel in a way that the cleancache subsystem clears an inode after the final file truncation (removal). The new file created with the same inode may contain leftover pages from cleancache and the old file data instead of the new one.

Vulnerability class: Information Disclosure

Published 2018-11-26 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 5.3 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:H/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:L/A:N.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.005 (42.7th percentile), scored 2026-10-02.

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 43rd percentile — 42.7% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.005 · newest: 0.005 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Linux Kernel
[Unknown] Kernel:
Canonical Ubuntu Linux — versions 14.04, 16.04
Debian Linux — versions 8.0
Red Hat Enterprise Linux — versions 7.0

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-200 — Information Disclosure

References

www.securityfocus.com/bid/106009 (VDB Entry, Third Party Advisory, vdb-entry)
usn.ubuntu.com/3879-2/ (vendor-advisory, Third Party Advisory)
seclists.org/oss-sec/2018/q4/169 (mailing-list, Mailing List, Third Party Advisory)
usn.ubuntu.com/3879-1/ (vendor-advisory, Third Party Advisory)
lore.kernel.org/patchwork/patch/1011367/ (Patch, Issue Tracking, Vendor Advisory)
bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi (Third Party Advisory, Issue Tracking)
lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2019/03/msg00017.html (mailing-list, Mailing List, Third Party Advisory)
lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2019/03/msg00034.html (mailing-list, Mailing List, Third Party Advisory)
lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2019/04/msg00004.html (mailing-list)
usn.ubuntu.com/4094-1/ (vendor-advisory)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2018-16862?: CVE-2018-16862 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux Kernel, classified under Information Disclosure. CVSS score: 5.3/10. Published 2018-11-26.
How severe is CVE-2018-16862?: Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.3 out of 10.