Improper control of a resource through its lifetime in Linux kernel - CVE-2026-46160
Published: May 29, 2026
Vulnerability identifier: #VU133036
CSH Severity: Low
CVSS v4.0: CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:H/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:U/U:Clear
CVE-ID: CVE-2026-46160
CWE-ID: CWE-664
Exploitation vector: Local access
Exploit availability:
No public exploit available
Vendor: Linux Foundation
Affected software:
Linux kernel
Linux kernel
Detailed vulnerability description
The vulnerability allows a local user to cause filesystem corruption and a denial of service.
The vulnerability exists due to improper state update in the btrfs directory unlink handling when removing a directory and later fsyncing it through an open file descriptor. A local user can remove a directory, retain a file descriptor to it, and trigger fsync to cause filesystem corruption and a denial of service.
The issue can cause log replay to fail with an -EIO error when the filesystem is mounted.
How to mitigate CVE-2026-46160
Install security update from vendor's repository.
Sources
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/36fcc2c7517f8a86379154c9793f867592aa8b7e
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/999757231c49376cd1a37308d2c8c4c9932571e1
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/aa9c3ecaf7337df3a689318584f879b5339ede0f
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/cc3c0a0f965754ce230d93ba44ee5b34fbe6138a
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/fb388eb58c1ba047ccabc33901839acfecadcf49