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CVE intelligence

CVE-2026-98975

Vulnerability intelligence

Published Oct 23, 2026Sources checked Oct 27, 2026
7.8HIGHCVSS out of 10
What this means

Review the available evidence

CVE-2026-98975 and is rated High severity with a CVSS score of 7.8. 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: Oct 26, 2026

Release Notes

CISA KEVNot listedBased on the latest collected catalog
EPSS0.2%Estimated 30-day exploitation probability
Ransomware useNot markedCISA KEV ransomware field
Threat actors0Source-linked actor relationships
Overview

What is CVE-2026-98975?

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

xfs: stop exchanging reflink flags when exchanging mappings

When an exchange covers both files from offset 0 to i_disk_size, xmi_can_exchange_reflink_flags() assumes every mapping moved and hands the reflink flag over to the other file.

That assumption is wrong. A file can still own shared blocks past i_disk_size, e.g. after EXCHANGE_RANGE_TO_EOF sets a smaller size without unmapping anything.

The flag is cleared anyway, and the next write to such a block happens in place instead of CoW, corrupting the other file that shares it.

Commit a23eca88448e ("xfs: fix exchange-range reflink flag clearing issue with INO1_WRITTEN") fixed one instance of this. Rather than add another special case, stop moving the flags. xfs_exchmaps_ensure_reflink() already sets the flag on both inodes before the exchange, so both just keep it.

Nothing sets CLEAR_INO{1,2}_REFLINK anymore. Intents logged by older kernels may still carry them; recovery already masks them off, so they stay in the log format mask and are ignored.

XFS_IOC_SWAPEXT has the same problem: it moves the reflink flag from one inode to the other along with the extents. Just removing that is not enough here: the exchange path flags both inodes up front in xfs_exchmaps_ensure_reflink(), but swapext has no such step, so the inode receiving the shared extents would be left without the flag.

Set it on both inodes instead, and make sure both have a CoW fork, since an inode with the reflink flag is expected to have one.

The flag now stays until FALLOC_FL_UNSHARE_RANGE, xfs_scrub, or a truncate to zero removes it.

Source: NVD