Vulnerability in Linux

CVE-2026-72172

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/mm_init: fix uninitialized struct pages for ZONE_DEVICE If DAX memory is hotplugged into an unoccupied subsection of an early section, section_activate() reuses the unoptimized boot memmap. However, compound_nr_pages() still assumes that vmemmap optimization is in effect and initializes only the reduced number of struct pages. As a result, the remaining tail struct pages are left uninitialized, which can later lead to unexpected behavior or crashes. Fix this by treating early sections as unoptimized when calculating how many struct pages to initialize.

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 7.8 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.002 (6.4th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 6th percentile — 6.4% 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-2026-72172: held from 0.002 to 0.002.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.002 · newest: 0.002 · change: +0.000

Affected products

  • Linux — versions 7.2-rc1, 5.19, 6fd3620b342861de9547ea01d28f664892ef51a1

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-72172?
CVE-2026-72172 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux. CVSS score: 7.8/10. Published 2026-08-15.
How severe is CVE-2026-72172?
High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.8 out of 10.