CVE-2026-89972

9.8 CRITICAL

Published 2026-09-16 · Updated 2026-09-16

AI risk analysis

Summary: This flaw in the Linux kernel's NVMe driver allows concurrent readers to hold a reference to a namespace structure that is being freed, potentially leading to a use-after-free condition.
Exploitability: Exploitation requires concurrent access to the namespace list and the ability to trigger the error path in the NVMe driver. This is moderately difficult and requires specific timing and conditions.
Blast radius: If exploited, this could lead to arbitrary code execution or denial of service conditions, depending on the context in which the namespace is used.
Detection: No reliable host or network indicator is derivable from the published description.
Prioritized remediation: Upgrade to the specific version mentioned in the fix: 'Upgrade to v5.19-rc1 or later'.

kerneluse-after-freenvmecritical

Analysis generated locally by qwen2.5:7b-instruct (no data left the box). AI-assisted — verify against primary sources before acting.

NVD description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: nvme: add missing SRCU grace period in error path nvme_alloc_ns() error path at out_unlink_ns removes ns from the namespace head siblings list with list_del_rcu(&ns->siblings) but does not wait for SRCU readers before freeing the namespace struct. Multipath code iterates the head->list under srcu_read_lock() in nvme_find_path() and nvme_mpath_revalidate_paths(), so a concurrent reader can still hold a reference to ns when kfree(ns) runs. The normal removal path in nvme_ns_remove() correctly calls synchronize_srcu(&ns->head->srcu) after list_del_rcu() to wait for in-progress readers. Add the same grace period in the error path.

CVSS vector

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

All references

Source data: NVD (nvd.nist.gov), public domain. Exploit-DB.ai adds local AI analysis for defensive use only.

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