Bug 2516636 (CVE-2026-72372)

Summary: CVE-2026-72372 kernel: afs: Fix lack of locking around modifications of net->cells_dyn_ino
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: unspecifiedCC: rhel-process-autobot, watson-tool-maintainers
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security
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Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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A flaw was found in the AFS (Andrew File System) component of the Linux kernel. This vulnerability arises from insufficient locking mechanisms when modifying internal data structures related to dynamic inode management. An attacker could potentially exploit this weakness, leading to system instability or a denial of service (DoS), where the system becomes unresponsive or crashes. The issue has been resolved by implementing exclusive locking during these critical operations.
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-08-15 06:23:10 UTC 
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

afs: Fix lack of locking around modifications of net->cells_dyn_ino

Fix the lack of locking around modifications of net->cells_dyn_ino by
taking net->cells_lock exclusively.  This also requires to cell to be
removed from net->cells_dyn_ino in afs_destroy_cell_work() rather than in
afs_cell_destroy() as the latter runs in RCU cleanup context and sleeping
locks cannot be taken there.
Comment 1 gkamathe 2026-08-19 06:29:50 UTC 
Upstream advisory:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/2026081516-CVE-2026-72372-ec1e@gregkh/T