Vulnerability in Linux

CVE-2026-72098

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: dm-verity: fix buffer overflow in FEC calculation There's a buffer overflow in dm-verity-fec: if (neras && *neras <= v->fec->roots) fio->erasures[(*neras)++] = i; This allows *neras to reach roots + 1 (the post-increment pushes it past roots). This value is then passed as no_eras to decode_rs8(). Inside the RS decoder (lib/reed_solomon/decode_rs.c:113-121), the erasure locator polynomial loop writes lambda[j] where j can reach nroots + 1 — one element past the end of lambda[] (which is sized nroots + 1, valid indices 0..nroots). The out-of-bounds write lands on syn[0], corrupting the syndrome buffer.

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 9.8 (Critical). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.007 (49.7th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 50th percentile — 49.7% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS trend (30 days)EPSS over the last 30 days for CVE-2026-72098: held from 0.006 to 0.007.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.006 · newest: 0.007 · change: +0.000

Affected products

  • Linux — versions 7.2, 6.18.42, 7.2-rc3

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-72098?
CVE-2026-72098 is a critical-severity vulnerability in Linux. CVSS score: 9.8/10. Published 2026-08-15.
How severe is CVE-2026-72098?
Critical severity. CVSS v3 base score is 9.8 out of 10.