CVE-2026-43179 erofs: fix incorrect early exits for invalid metabox-enabled images

Medium 5.5 Published Updated

Crafted EROFS images cause folio reference leaks in the Linux kernel, potentially leading to resource exhaustion and denial of service.

Exploited in the wild
Not known
Login needed
Any signed-in user
Attackable
Local or same network only
Victim action needed
Not needed
Fix
Available

What is CVE-2026-43179?

CVE-2026-43179 is a medium-severity memory corruption vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 6 May 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

Official description

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

erofs: fix incorrect early exits for invalid metabox-enabled images

Crafted EROFS images with metadata compression enabled can trigger incorrect early returns, leading to folio reference leaks.

However, this does not cause system crashes or other severe issues.

Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-43179?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2026-43179?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Upgrade to the fixed version. Memory-safe languages, compiler hardening and fuzzing prevent most new cases. More about Memory corruption.

Is CVE-2026-43179 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-43179 in the wild and no public exploit code.

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

Also known as BELL-CVE-2026-43179, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-43179, GHSA-43g9-xc7g-7r65, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-43179.

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