CVE-2025-71269 btrfs: do not free data reservation in fallback from inline due to -ENOSPC

What is CVE-2025-71269?

CVE-2025-71269 is a high-severity use after free vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 18 Mar 2026. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.

Official description

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

btrfs: do not free data reservation in fallback from inline due to -ENOSPC

If we fail to create an inline extent due to -ENOSPC, we will attempt to go through the normal COW path, reserve an extent, create an ordered extent, etc. However we were always freeing the reserved qgroup data, which is wrong since we will use data. Fix this by freeing the reserved qgroup data in __cow_file_range_inline() only if we are not doing the fallback (ret is <= 0).

Weakness: CWE-416

Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-71269?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2025-71269?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Upgrade to the fixed version. These bugs are found with fuzzing and sanitisers and avoided by memory-safe languages. More about Use after free.

Is CVE-2025-71269 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-71269 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

• CVE-2026-53266 Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2013-6282 Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2022-0185 Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2013-2094 Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2026-53362 Linux Kernel Unspecified Exploited High 7.8

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as AZL-80085, BELL-CVE-2025-71269, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-71269, GHSA-wqgp-m495-6968, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2025-71269, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-12-CVE-2025-71269 and 4 more.