CVE-2026-43106 HIGH

CVE-2026-43106: cachefiles: fix incorrect dentry refcount in cachefiles_cull()

Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Published May 6, 2026
Last update May 11, 2026

CVSS base score

7.8/10
Attack vector Local
Attack complexity Low
Privileges required Low
User interaction None
Confidentiality High
Integrity High

CVSS vector

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

What the vulnerability does

01Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: cachefiles: fix incorrect dentry refcount in cachefiles_cull() The patch mentioned below changed cachefiles_bury_object() to expect 2 references to the 'rep' dentry. Three of the callers were changed to use start_removing_dentry() which takes an extra reference so in those cases the call gets the expected references. However there is another call to cachefiles_bury_object() in cachefiles_cull() which did not need to be changed to use start_removing_dentry() and so was not properly considered. It still passed the dentry with just one reference so the net result is that a reference is lost. To meet the expectations of cachefiles_bury_object(), cachefiles_cull() must take an extra reference before the call. It will be dropped by cachefiles_bury_object().

Key dates

02Disclosure timeline

May 6, 2026 CVE published
May 11, 2026 Record updated