CVE-2026-72186

A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's NTFS driver. A local user could exploit this by writing to specific system files, such as $Bitmap, which are exposed through the show_sys_files interface. This unauthorized write access can lead to file system corruption and potentially cause a system deadlock, impacting data integrity and system availability.

This vulnerability is assessed as a Moderate severity flaw because exploitation is restricted to local users interacting with mounted NTFS filesystems, bounding the threat to volume corruption and kernel deadlocks without enabling arbitrary code execution. Furthermore, the underlying flaw relies on exposing internal metadata files through specific mount options, requiring non-standard filesystem configurations. Supported Red Hat Enterprise Linux releases are not affected, as the vulnerable code introduced in recent upstream kernels is not present.

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.