CVE-2026-72377

Name of the Vulnerable Software and Affected Versions Linux kernel (affected versions not specified)

Description An issue exists in the AFS component where the afs apply status() function unconditionally calls mapping set release always() for symlinks and mountpoints. While regular AFS files use afs file aops with a release folio callback, symlinks and mountpoints use afs dir aops, which lacks this callback. When the memory management code attempts to release folios, filemap release folio() detects that AS RELEASE ALWAYS is set and, finding no release folio callback, invokes try to free buffers(). Because try to free buffers() expects buffer heads to be non-null, a pointer dereference occurs for symlinks and mountpoints that do not have buffer heads.

Recommendations At the moment, there is no information about a newer version that contains a fix for this vulnerability.