CVE-2026-72103

dm: avoid leaking the caller's thread keyring via the table device file

State
Published
Severity
7.3 High
Published
Aug 15, 2026
Updated
Oct 19, 2026
Reserved
Aug 9, 2026

Read the record on cve.org

Description

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

dm: avoid leaking the caller's thread keyring via the table device file

The refactoring in commit a28d893eb327 ("md: port block device access to file") accidentally causes the caller's thread keyring to be kept alive long beyond the caller's lifetime.

As a result, "cryptsetup luksSuspend" silently fails to wipe the LUKS volume key from memory.

In detail: "cryptsetup luksOpen" uses its supposedly ephemeral thread keyring to pass the volume key to the kernel. dm-crypt's crypt_set_keyring_key() copies the key material into its own crypt_config structure and then drops its own reference to the key in the keyring with key_put().

With this fix, restoring pre-v6.9 behavior, the copy in the thread keyring is then promptly garbage collected, such that exactly one copy of the volume key remains. This single copy is correctly wiped from memory on "cryptsetup luksSuspend".

Without this fix, the thread keyring and the volume key in it remains. This second copy is only freed on "luksClose". "luksSuspend" neither knows about this copy nor has any way to remove it, so the key remains recoverable from RAM after a suspend that is documented to have wiped it.

This fix should not introduce new security problems, as the code is anyway gated by CAP_SYS_ADMIN. The device-mapper core, not the calling task, is the legitimate owner of this long-lived file.

Scores

CVSSScoreVectorSource
3.17.3 HighCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:LLinux

Weaknesses

  • CWE-200 Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor

Affected Products

ProductVersions
LinuxLinux
  • a28d893eb3270cf62c10dd8777af0d8452cdc072 to before d3eb8451d529ea452740d1a2bc395a1d20c48133Affected
  • a28d893eb3270cf62c10dd8777af0d8452cdc072 to before 8ced1d242c34e342defcccdb00663354f212aae6Affected
  • a28d893eb3270cf62c10dd8777af0d8452cdc072 to before f00105be6a593920e9bc7949a069d4a116888851Affected
  • a28d893eb3270cf62c10dd8777af0d8452cdc072 to before 981ccd97f7153d310dfa92a534525bbaf46752c2Affected
LinuxLinux
  • 6.9Affected
  • before 6.9Not affected
  • 6.12.101 through 6.12.*Not affected
  • 6.18.42 through 6.18.*Not affected
  • 7.1.5 through 7.1.*Not affected
  • 7.2 and laterNot affected

References

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