VulnerabilityPublished 22 Apr 2026Updated 31 Jul 2026

CVE-2026-31465: Linux kernel · writeback: don't block sync for filesystems with no data integrity guarantees

Affects Linux kernelSource GCVE Database

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 5.5 Medium.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 14:05 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

5.5Medium

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 1% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Attack Vector: Local
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: None
Integrity: None
Availability: High

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Local: The vulnerable component is not bound to the network stack and the attacker’s path is via read/write/execute capabilities. Either: the attacker exploits the vulnerability by accessing the target system locally (e.g., keyboard, console), or remotely (e.g., SSH); or the attacker relies on User Interaction by another person to perform actions required to exploit the vulnerability (e.g., tricking a legitimate user into opening a malicious document).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: Low: The attacker is authorized with (i.e., requires) privileges that provide basic user capabilities that could normally affect only settings and files owned by a user. Alternatively, an attacker with Low privileges may have the ability to cause an impact only to non-sensitive resources.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
Confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the impacted component.
Integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the impacted component.
Availability: High: There is total loss of availability, resulting in the attacker being able to fully deny access to resources in the impacted component; this loss is either sustained (while the attacker continues to deliver the attack) or persistent (the condition persists even after the attack has completed). Alternatively, the attacker has the ability to deny some availability, but the loss of availability presents a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component (e.g., the attacker cannot disrupt existing connections, but can prevent new connections; the attacker can repeatedly exploit a vulnerability that, in each instance of a successful attack, leaks a only small amount of memory, but after repeated exploitation causes a service to become completely unavailable).

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 22 Apr 2026
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 26 Oct 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
Ubuntu 25.10linux`pkg:deb/ubuntu/linux?arch=source&distro=questing`Other threats	Affected 6.14.0-15.15 – 6.17.0-40.40 20 affected builds	Fixed in–
Ubuntu 25.10linux-aws`pkg:deb/ubuntu/linux-aws?arch=source&distro=questing`Other threats	Affected 6.14.0-1005.5 – 6.17.0-1019.19 17 affected builds	Fixed in–
Ubuntu 25.10linux-azure`pkg:deb/ubuntu/linux-azure?arch=source&distro=questing`Other threats	Affected 6.14.0-1004.4 – 6.17.0-1020.20 16 affected builds	Fixed in–
Ubuntu 25.10linux-azure-fde`pkg:deb/ubuntu/linux-azure-fde?arch=source&distro=questing`Other threats	Affected 6.17.0-1003.3 – 6.17.0-1017.17 10 affected builds	Fixed in–
Ubuntu 25.10linux-gcp`pkg:deb/ubuntu/linux-gcp?arch=source&distro=questing`Other threats	Affected 6.14.0-1006.6 – 6.17.0-1020.22 17 affected builds	Fixed in–
Ubuntu 25.10linux-oracle`pkg:deb/ubuntu/linux-oracle?arch=source&distro=questing`Other threats	Affected 6.14.0-1005.5 – 6.17.0-1018.18 16 affected builds	Fixed in–

Check your own hosts for these packages with threat-finder (opens in a new tab), our free open-source scanner.

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: writeback: don't block sync for filesystems with no data integrity guarantees Add a SB_I_NO_DATA_INTEGRITY superblock flag for filesystems that cannot guarantee data persistence on sync (eg fuse). For superblocks with this flag set, sync kicks off writeback of dirty inodes but does not wait for the flusher threads to complete the writeback. This replaces the per-inode AS_NO_DATA_INTEGRITY mapping flag added in commit f9a49aa302a0 ("fs/writeback: skip AS_NO_DATA_INTEGRITY mappings in wait_sb_inodes()"). The flag belongs at the superblock level because data integrity is a filesystem-wide property, not a per-inode one. Having this flag at the superblock level also allows us to skip having to iterate every dirty inode in wait_sb_inodes() only to skip each inode individually. Prior to this commit, mappings with no data integrity guarantees skipped waiting on writeback completion but still waited on the flusher threads to finish initiating the writeback. Waiting on the flusher threads is unnecessary. This commit kicks off writeback but does not wait on the flusher threads. This change properly addresses a recent report [1] for a suspend-to-RAM hang seen on fuse-overlayfs that was caused by waiting on the flusher threads to finish: Workqueue: pm_fs_sync pm_fs_sync_work_fn Call Trace: <TASK> __schedule+0x457/0x1720 schedule+0x27/0xd0 wb_wait_for_completion+0x97/0xe0 sync_inodes_sb+0xf8/0x2e0 __iterate_supers+0xdc/0x160 ksys_sync+0x43/0xb0 pm_fs_sync_work_fn+0x17/0xa0 process_one_work+0x193/0x350 worker_thread+0x1a1/0x310 kthread+0xfc/0x240 ret_from_fork+0x243/0x280 ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30 </TASK> On fuse this is problematic because there are paths that may cause the flusher thread to block (eg if systemd freezes the user session cgroups first, which freezes the fuse daemon, before invoking the kernel suspend. The kernel suspend triggers ->write_node() which on fuse issues a synchronous setattr request, which cannot be processed since the daemon is frozen. Or if the daemon is buggy and cannot properly complete writeback, initiating writeback on a dirty folio already under writeback leads to writeback_get_folio() -> folio_prepare_writeback() -> unconditional wait on writeback to finish, which will cause a hang). This commit restores fuse to its prior behavior before tmp folios were removed, where sync was essentially a no-op. [1] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-fsdevel/CAJnrk1a-asuvfrbKXbEwwDSctvemF+6zfhdnuzO65Pt8HsFSRw@mail.gmail.com/T/#m632c4648e9cafc4239299887109ebd880ac6c5c1

References

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