Vulnerability in Linux

CVE-2026-72186

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ntfs: make system files immutable to prevent corruption When a system file such as $Bitmap is exposed via show_sys_files and written from userspace, the volume is corrupted and, because the cluster allocator scans $Bitmap through the same inode's page cache, a write to $Bitmap also deadlocks writeback against the folio it already holds locked. These files are maintained by the driver itself and have no valid reason to be written through the file interface. Mark base metadata files (mft_no < FILE_first_user) as immutable during inode read so the VFS rejects write, mmap, truncate and unlink with -EPERM. Directories are skipped so the root and $Extend remain usable. Internal metadata updates do not go through the VFS write path and are unaffected.

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 9.1 (Critical). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.005 (40.5th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 40th percentile — 40.5% 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-2026-72186: held from 0.005 to 0.005.

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

Affected products

  • Linux — versions 7.2, af0db57d4293cc9fe6ce99fb5592dc2652228c9d, 7.2-rc3

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-72186?
CVE-2026-72186 is a critical-severity vulnerability in Linux. CVSS score: 9.1/10. Published 2026-08-15.
How severe is CVE-2026-72186?
Critical severity. CVSS v3 base score is 9.1 out of 10.