Race condition in Linux kernel - CVE-2026-98539

Vulnerability identifier: #VU156841

CSH Severity: Low

CVSS v4: 2 [CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N]

CVE-ID: CVE-2026-98539

CWE-ID: CWE-362

Exploitation vector: Local access

Exploit availability: No public exploit available

The vulnerability allows a local user to cause a denial of service by indefinitely blocking operations on an NTFS3 directory.

The vulnerability exists due to a race condition in ntfs_create_inode() in the Linux kernel NTFS3 filesystem when exposing a new directory inode before its lock initialization is complete. A local user can race directory creation with a path lookup or mount operation to reset an inode lock while it is held, corrupt its state, and cause subsequent directory locking operations to block indefinitely.

Linux kernel
Ubuntu
linux (Ubuntu package)
linux-aws (Ubuntu package)
linux-gcp (Ubuntu package)
linux-oracle (Ubuntu package)
linux-ibm (Ubuntu package)
linux-hwe-7.0 (Ubuntu package)
linux-oem-7.0 (Ubuntu package)

Install security update from vendor's repository.

Linux kernel - update to 7.0 rc3
linux (Ubuntu package) - update to 7.0.0-42.42
linux-aws (Ubuntu package) - update to 7.0.0-1016.17
linux-gcp (Ubuntu package) - update to 7.0.0-1016.18
linux-oracle (Ubuntu package) - update to 7.0.0-1015.16
linux-ibm (Ubuntu package) - update to 7.0.0-1017.17
linux-hwe-7.0 (Ubuntu package) - update to 7.0.0-42.42~24.04.1
linux-oem-7.0 (Ubuntu package) - update to 7.0.0-1017.17

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/1abd643f3783ea8f8e273c18697ff0413aa92dc7
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/1ae2a242c15b03470b1b16289298e597bbe3bb29
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/37ec7353f4ac495b28284b0fcb0e53d21d1b3f3f
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/6fda7121cb6a8ea6fbd77d0f787f04b8e8b5358e

• Race condition in Linux kernel ntfs3
• Ubuntu update for linux-oem-7.0
• Ubuntu update for linux, linux-aws, linux-gcp and more