CVE-2026-45920

A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's ext4 filesystem. This vulnerability allows a local user to trigger an inconsistency in the dirty clusters count during filesystem shutdown. The issue stems from a double decrement in the error handling path, which can lead to system instability and a denial of service.

This vulnerability is rated as having a Low severity for Red Hat Enterprise Linux because triggering it requires an uncommon sequence of disk write failures during an ext4 filesystem shutdown, resulting merely in a non-fatal kernel warning during unmount. The flaw cannot be exploited across the network and does not allow unauthorized privilege escalation, arbitrary code execution, or persistent data corruption. Consequently, the practical operational impact is limited to diagnostic log noise under rare error conditions on local systems.

The CVSS score(s) listed for this vulnerability do not reflect the associated product's status, and are included for informational purposes to better understand the severity of this vulnerability.