Improper Initialization in Linux kernel - CVE-2026-72172
Published: August 16, 2026
Vulnerability identifier: #VU143418
CSH Severity: Low
CVSS v4: 6.7 [CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:H/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N]
CVE-ID: CVE-2026-72172
CWE-ID: CWE-665
Exploitation vector: Local access
Exploit availability:
No public exploit available
Vulnerability details
The vulnerability allows a local attacker to cause a denial of service.
The vulnerability exists due to uninitialized memory in struct pages for ZONE_DEVICE in mm/mm_init.c when hot-plugging DAX memory into an unoccupied subsection of an early section. A local attacker can hot-plug crafted DAX memory to cause a denial of service.
The issue occurs because the unoptimized boot memmap is reused for early sections while only a reduced number of struct pages are initialized, leaving remaining tail struct pages uninitialized.
Affected software
Linux kernel
How to mitigate CVE-2026-72172
Install security update from vendor's repository.
Linux kernel - update to 7.0 rc3
External References
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/11f2826e9ee6f24aaa774e3dcd75abbe4b3091b6
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/511a60e71aec308b24722cffc1912bf6befb87bf
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b91e27bce37cab9f35de0059278ebe457ca9878b
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/cd681403a87085562499d60325b7b45d3be11217
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/da5234df0941665f3a3f5b80f3dab94046537be0