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Linux ksmbd CVE-2026-72381

| EUVDEUVD-2026-59280 CRITICAL
2026-08-15 Linux GHSA-qx34-9c4p-jvq8
Critical
Disputed · 9.8 Vendor: Linux
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Severity by source

Sources disagree (Medium–Critical)
Vendor (Linux) PRIMARY
9.8 CRITICAL
AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
vuln.today AI
5.9 MEDIUM

Tight reconnect race gives AC:H; durable handles need an authenticated SMB session so PR:L; a read-UAF yields limited info leak (C:L) and kernel crash (A:H) rather than integrity impact.

3.1 AV:N/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:H
4.0 AV:N/AC:H/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:L/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
SUSE
7.8 HIGH
AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
Red Hat
7.0 MEDIUM
qualitative

vuln.today treats the vendor’s rating as authoritative. A higher third-party CVSS (e.g. CISA-ADP) is shown for transparency but does not drive the headline severity.

CVSS VectorVendor: Linux

Attack Vector
Network
Attack Complexity
Low
Privileges Required
None
User Interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

Lifecycle Timeline

5
Analysis Generated
Aug 17, 2026 - 08:57 vuln.today
CVSS changed
Aug 17, 2026 - 06:22 NVD
9.8 (CRITICAL)
Patch available
Aug 15, 2026 - 07:20 EUVD
CVE Published
Aug 15, 2026 - 05:56 cve.org
CRITICAL 9.8
CVE Published
Aug 15, 2026 - 05:56 cve.org
UNKNOWN (no severity yet)

DescriptionCVE.org

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

ksmbd: fix use-after-free of fp->owner.name in durable handle owner check

Two concurrent SMB2 durable reconnects (DH2C/DHnC) on the same persistent_id race the fp->owner.name compare-read in ksmbd_vfs_compare_durable_owner() against the kfree() in ksmbd_reopen_durable_fd()'s reopen-success path. fp->owner.name is a standalone kstrdup() buffer whose lifetime is independent of the fp refcount, and the two sites share no lock: the compare reads the buffer while the reopen frees it, so the strcmp() can dereference freed memory.

Commit 7ce4fc40018d ("ksmbd: fix durable reconnect double-bind race in ksmbd_reopen_durable_fd") made the fp->conn claim atomic under global_ft.lock (closing the owner.name double-free and the ksmbd_file write-UAF), but the compare-read versus reopen-free pair was left unserialized.

BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in strcmp+0x2c/0x80 Read of size 1 by task kworker strcmp ksmbd_vfs_compare_durable_owner smb2_check_durable_oplock smb2_open Freed by task kworker: kfree ksmbd_reopen_durable_fd smb2_open Allocated by task kworker: kstrdup session_fd_check smb2_session_logoff The buggy address belongs to the cache kmalloc-8

Serialize both sides of the race with fp->f_lock. The global durable file-table lock still protects the durable reconnect claim, but fp->owner.name is per-open state and does not need to block unrelated durable table lookups or reconnects. The teardown is left at its existing location after the reopen-success point so that an __open_id() rollback still retains owner.name for a later legitimate reconnect to verify.

AnalysisAI

A use-after-free in the Linux kernel's in-kernel SMB3 server (ksmbd) durable-handle path lets a concurrent SMB2 durable reconnect (DH2C/DHnC) read the freed fp->owner.name buffer via strcmp() in ksmbd_vfs_compare_durable_owner(), as caught by KASAN. Only systems that enable and export shares over ksmbd are affected, and exploitation requires winning a tight race between two reconnects on the same persistent_id. No public exploit identified at time of analysis, and EPSS is low (0.21%), consistent with a hard-to-time kernel race rather than a turnkey remote exploit despite the 9.8 input score.

Technical ContextAI

ksmbd is the Linux kernel's native SMB2/SMB3 file-server implementation (an in-kernel alternative to userspace Samba) that manages open file handles as ksmbd_file (fp) objects. SMB2 durable handles let a client survive brief disconnects and reclaim a prior open using a persistent_id; on reconnect the server verifies ownership by comparing the stored fp->owner.name string. That name is a standalone kstrdup() buffer (allocated in session_fd_check()/smb2_session_logoff, landing in kmalloc-8) whose lifetime is decoupled from the fp refcount. The root cause is CWE-416 (use-after-free) driven by a CWE-362 concurrency race: ksmbd_vfs_compare_durable_owner() reads owner.name under no shared lock while ksmbd_reopen_durable_fd()'s success path kfree()s it. A prior fix (commit 7ce4fc40018d) serialized the fp->conn claim under global_ft.lock but left this compare-read versus reopen-free pair unserialized. The affected product per CPE is cpe:2.3:a:linux:linux (the kernel), specifically builds with CONFIG_SMB_SERVER (ksmbd) enabled.

RemediationAI

Vendor-released patch: upgrade to a fixed stable kernel - 6.18.40, 6.12.97, 6.6.145, 7.1.5, or 7.2-rc2 (or later on your branch), which serialize both sides of the race with fp->f_lock; reference the stable commits at https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/fb978d72052704c6b06c6b0f129fcd60b77169f5 and https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-72381. Where immediate patching is not possible, the most effective compensating control is to stop using the in-kernel server: disable/unload the ksmbd module (rmmod ksmbd, blacklist it, or boot a kernel without CONFIG_SMB_SERVER) and serve SMB via userspace Samba instead, which is not affected by this code path - the trade-off is a service migration and a possible performance change. If ksmbd must stay enabled, restrict TCP 445 to trusted management networks and require authenticated, least-privilege SMB sessions, and consider disabling durable/persistent handle support in the share configuration to remove the vulnerable reconnect path, accepting reduced client resiliency across brief network interruptions.

Vendor StatusVendor

SUSE

Severity: Important
Product Status
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP7 Not-Affected
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP7 Not-Affected
SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 15 SP7 Not-Affected
SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 15 SP7 Not-Affected
SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 16.0 Not-Affected

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CVE-2026-72381 vulnerability details – vuln.today

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