CVE-2026-72438: Linux

High severity, CVSS 7.5. EPSS: 0.5% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: md/raid10: fix writes_pending and barrier reference leaks on discard failures raid10_make_request() acquires a writes_pending reference with md_write_start() before calling raid10_handle_discard(). Several failure paths in raid10_handle_discard() complete the bio and return without releasing the corresponding reference, causing md_write_end() to be skipped. Call md_write_end() before returning from these failure paths to keep writes_pending accounting balanced. Additionally, discard split allocation failures can occur after wait_barrier() succeeds. Those paths return without calling allow_barrier(), leaking the associated barrier reference. Release the barrier before returning from those paths.

Affected products

• Linux Linux: from 5.15.111, before 5.16 (fixed in 5.16); from 5.17, before 6.12.111 (fixed in 6.12.111); from 6.13, before 6.18.53 (fixed in 6.18.53); from 6.19, before 7.1.5 (fixed in 7.1.5)

Published 2026-08-15. Last modified 2026-09-21.