CVE-2026-72368
NVD analysis in progress
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: cachefiles: Fix double unlock in nomem_d_alloc error path When start_creating() fails and returns -ENOMEM, it has already released the parent directory lock in __start_dirop(): static struct dentry *__start_dirop(...) { ... inode_lock_nested(dir, I_MUTEX_PARENT); dentry = lookup_one_qstr_excl(name, parent, lookup_flags); if (IS_ERR(dentry)) inode_unlock(dir); <-- Lock released on error return dentry; } However, the nomem_d_alloc error path in cachefiles_get_directory() unconditionally calls inode_unlock(d_inode(dir)) again, causing a double unlock that corrupts the rwsem state. This is a leftover from commit 7ab96df840e60 which replaced manual locking with start_creating() but failed to update the nomem_d_alloc path (while correctly updating mkdir_error and lookup_error paths).
What this means
- Exposure
- Exploitable with local access to the machine, with an ordinary user account and with no action from the victim.
- Impact
- An attacker can read sensitive data, modify or destroy data and take the service offline.
- Likelihood
- Its EPSS score stays low: nothing points to imminent exploitation, which is no reason to leave it unpatched.
What to doFold into the next patch cycle.
Read automatically from the CVSS vector, the weakness type (CWE) and the EPSS score. The technical description above remains the one published by NIST.