Vulnerability in Linux
CVE-2026-72210
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ntfs: fix off-by-one in mapping pairs decoding bounds checks In ntfs_mapping_pairs_decompress(), attr_end points one byte past the end of the attribute record: attr_end = (u8 *)attr + le32_to_cpu(attr->length); The two bounds checks validating that mapping pair data bytes fit within the attribute use strict greater-than (>), which allows a one-byte out-of-bounds read when the data extends exactly to attr_end: b = *buf & 0xf; if (b) { if (unlikely(buf + b > attr_end)) // off-by-one goto io_error; for (deltaxcn = (s8)buf[b--]; b; b--) deltaxcn = (deltaxcn << 8) + buf[b]; } When buf + b == attr_end, the check evaluates to false and buf[b] reads one byte past the valid attribute boundary. The same pattern appears in the LCN delta bytes check. Fix both checks to use >= so that buf[b] at exactly attr_end is correctly rejected as out of bounds.
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: 0.006 (44.0th percentile), scored .
Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 44th percentile — 44.0% 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: 0.006 · change: +0.000
Affected products
- Linux — versions 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2, 7.2-rc1, 7.2
References
Frequently asked questions
- What is CVE-2026-72210?
- CVE-2026-72210 is a critical-severity vulnerability in Linux. CVSS score: 9.8/10. Published 2026-08-15.
- How severe is CVE-2026-72210?
- Critical severity. CVSS v3 base score is 9.8 out of 10.