CVE-2026-72082: Linux

EPSS: 0.2% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: scsi: elx: efct: Fix refcount leak in efct_hw_io_abort() When efct_hw_reqtag_alloc() fails in efct_hw_io_abort(), the error path returns -ENOSPC without releasing the reference obtained via kref_get_unless_zero() earlier in the function. All other error paths correctly drop the reference. This causes a permanent reference leak on the io_to_abort object. Additionally, the abort_in_progress flag is left set to true on this path, which means future abort attempts for the same I/O will immediately return -EINPROGRESS even though the abort was never submitted, effectively blocking recovery. Fix this by adding the missing kref_put() call and reset abort_in_progress to false, matching the cleanup done in the efct_hw_wq_write() failure path below.

Affected products

• Linux Linux: from 5.14, before 5.15.212 (fixed in 5.15.212); from 5.16, before 6.1.178 (fixed in 6.1.178); from 6.2, before 6.6.145 (fixed in 6.6.145); from 6.7, before 6.12.97 (fixed in 6.12.97); from 6.13, before 6.18.40 (fixed in 6.18.40); from 6.19, before 7.1.5 (fixed in 7.1.5)

Published 2026-08-15. Last modified 2026-08-17.