CVE-2026-72316

Technical Description

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

dm era: fix NULL pointer dereference in metadata_open()

metadata_open() returns NULL when kzalloc_obj() fails, but the

caller era_ctr() only checks IS_ERR(md). Since IS_ERR(NULL)

returns false, the NULL pointer is treated as a valid result

and later assigned to era->md, leading to a NULL pointer

dereference when the metadata is accessed.

Fix this by returning ERR_PTR(-ENOMEM) on allocation failure,

consistent with dm-cache-metadata.c, dm-thin-metadata.c, and

dm-clone-metadata.c which all use ERR_PTR(-ENOMEM) for the

same pattern.

Remediation

Check the references section for vendor advisories, patches, and mitigation guidance. If immediate patching is not possible, review the CVSS vector to understand the attack surface and apply compensating controls such as network segmentation or access restrictions.

References