CVE intelligence

CVE-2026-72438

Vulnerability intelligence

Published Aug 15, 2026Sources checked Oct 28, 2026

7.5HIGHCVSS out of 10

What this means

Review the available evidence

CVE-2026-72438 and is rated High severity with a CVSS score of 7.5. It is not in the current CISA KEV record we collected. That does not prove exploitation has not occurred.

What to do next

Remediation and response

Microsoft Security Response Center guidance

Vendor revision: Sep 24, 2026

Release Notes

CISA KEVNot listedBased on the latest collected catalog

EPSS0.5%Estimated 30-day exploitation probability

Ransomware useNot markedCISA KEV ransomware field

Threat actors0Source-linked actor relationships

Overview

What is CVE-2026-72438?

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.

Source: NVD