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no cvss —

CVE-2026-98885 json

ima: return error early if file xattr cannot be changed

published 19d ago modified 17d ago also EUVD-2026-108679

cvss
—
not scored
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 7%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

ima: return error early if file xattr cannot be changed

During early boot, the filesystem is read-only and any changes to xattrs are not allowed. This fails in case of ext4 because changing xattr starts an ext4 transaction which fails with the following warning.

WARNING: fs/ext4/ext4_jbd2.c:75 at ext4_journal_check_start+0x63/0xa0 [ext4], CPU#1: systemd-sysroot/561 CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 561 Comm: systemd-sysroot Not tainted 6.19.12-1-default #1 PREEMPT(voluntary) openSUSE Tumbleweed c2dfc3c9d9f6f1233251c5d4410574fe82a348ee Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS unknown 02/02/2022 RIP: 0010:ext4_journal_check_start+0x63/0xa0 [ext4] Call Trace: __ext4_journal_start_sb+0x3e/0x180 [ext4 6d025f3bc52c89a957b89a89d211fadf5e9434e1] ext4_xattr_set+0x104/0x150 [ext4 6d025f3bc52c89a957b89a89d211fadf5e9434e1] __vfs_setxattr+0x9a/0xd0 __vfs_setxattr_noperm+0x76/0x1f0 ima_appraise_measurement+0x23e/0xe40 ima_d_path+0x5a/0xd0 process_measurement+0xb29/0xc40 ? copy_from_kernel_nofault+0x21/0xe0 ? fscrypt_file_open+0xc0/0xe0 ? ext4_file_open+0x60/0x490 [ext4 6d025f3bc52c89a957b89a89d211fadf5e9434e1] ? bpf_prog_31efb7c56239148b_restrict_filesystems+0xab/0x126 ? __bpf_prog_exit+0x23/0xd0 ? __bpf_tramp_exit+0xd/0x50 ? bpf_trampoline_6442530367+0x9f/0xea ima_file_check+0x57/0x80 security_file_post_open+0x50/0xf0 path_openat+0x493/0x1650 do_filp_open+0xc7/0x170

Detect the state of the file early and return the error.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 7.2
  • linux Debian 12 6.1.190-1
  • linux Debian 13 6.12.111-1
  • linux Debian 14 7.2.6-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-98885

  • linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-202.212
  • linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-149.149
  • linux Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-42.42
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1119.126
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1069.74
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1016.17
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1120.130
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1073.81

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2026-98885

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • kernel Azure Linux 3.0 6.6.159.1-1

azure linux advisories AZL-110620

Azure Linux vulnerability data, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, from https://github.com/microsoft/AzureLinuxVulnerabilityData via OSV, under the MIT licence; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. MIT

Is CVE-2026-98885 in your stack? Fencer shows which of your repositories are affected as soon as an advisory lands, and opens the fix as a pull request.

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Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2026-98885 updated cvss 3.3

kernel: ima: return error early if file xattr cannot be changed

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-8, openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-9
    affected: no fix available “Fix deferred”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

0.18% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 7% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-11).

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Technology feeds

References

Sources

Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.