CVE-2026-99256 json
dm cache: fix issue with background work locking
published 6d ago modified 6d ago also EUVD-2026-115767
- 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 10%
- public exploits
- 0
- none known
Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
dm cache: fix issue with background work locking
dm cache used a rw_semaphore for background_work_lock. Write locks on rw_semaphores have strict owner semantics, but there was no guarantee that the process that locked background_work_lock was the same process that unlocked it. This can be easily seen using a kernel compiled with CONFIG_DEBUG_RWSEMS. Given a dm cache device <cache>, run: 'dmsetup suspend <cache> && dmsetup resume <cache>'. This will trigger a kernel warning:
DEBUG_RWSEMS_WARN_ON((rwsem_owner(sem) != current) && !rwsem_test_oflags(sem, RWSEM_NONSPINNABLE))
triggered by cache_resume(). To fix this, switch from a rw_semaphore to a spinlock and a wait queue. dm cache already has a wait queue and associated counter, migration_wait and nr_allocated_migrations, that was getting woken up when background work was getting completed, but wasn't actually used by anything. This is replaced by the background_work queue and counter.
Patch / fix
- Linux Linux 5.10.273, 5.15.224, 6.1.191, 6.6.161, 6.12.115, 6.18.59, 7.2.13, 7.3
- linux Debian 13 6.12.115-1
- linux Debian 14 7.2.13-1
debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-99256
- kernel Azure Linux 3.0 6.6.161.1-1
azure linux advisories AZL-112616
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
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/0c7a8cad7c96012a9157a189649e569d0390f384 commit
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/f5db935d257023c3ef410bd39163b949b0e5a55d commit
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/6290507ecc0dd6dd40759729cbbbd49b1d2a63c4 commit
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/8433fd005c25fd127021f67c9144a879fb585572 commit
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/2f2cfa16dd0f4179bb988139dd37d00a42324f6c commit
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/73df2ff409f3db95029982fe3656329568e3715d commit
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/104f09e02038b0fc6bbb718b3976af029e15c1d0 commit
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/bc9781c0247de107876f32929f1637db93a42b34 commit
Is CVE-2026-99256 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.
Check with FencerVendor advisories
What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.
red hat product security vex CVE-2026-99256 updated cvss 4.4
kernel: kernel: Denial of Service via improper lock ownership handling in dm-cache
-
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 moreaffected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
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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 Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 5 openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-9, openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-10affected: no fix available “Fix deferred”
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
0.20% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 10% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).
Affected products
- Linux Linux
Classification
- Technology feeds
References
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/0c7a8cad7c96012a9157a189649e569d0390f384
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/f5db935d257023c3ef410bd39163b949b0e5a55d
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/6290507ecc0dd6dd40759729cbbbd49b1d2a63c4
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/8433fd005c25fd127021f67c9144a879fb585572
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/2f2cfa16dd0f4179bb988139dd37d00a42324f6c
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/73df2ff409f3db95029982fe3656329568e3715d
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/104f09e02038b0fc6bbb718b3976af029e15c1d0
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/bc9781c0247de107876f32929f1637db93a42b34
Sources
- CVE List CVE-2026-99256
- NVD CVE-2026-99256
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.