Vulnerability in Linux

CVE-2026-72179

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: riscv: cacheinfo: Fix node reference leak in populate_cache_leaves Currently, the while loop drops the reference to prev in each iteration. If the loop terminates early due to a break, the final of_node_put(np) correctly drops the reference to the current node. However, if the loop terminates naturally because np == NULL, calling of_node_put(np) is a no-op. This leaves the last valid node stored in prev without its reference dropped, resulting in a node reference leak. Fix this by changing the final `of_node_put(np)` to `of_node_put(prev)`.

Published · last modified .

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.002 (10.6th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 11th percentile — 10.6% 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-2026-72179: 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, 6.6.145, 7.2

References