CVE-2026-72388 drm/panthor: Always use the IRQ-safe variant when acquiring the fence lock

Not scored Published 15 Aug 2026 Updated 21 Oct 2026

A race condition in the Panthor GPU driver can cause a kernel deadlock or crash when fence locks are accessed from interrupt context.

Exploited in the wild: Not known
Login needed: Not needed
Attackable: Local or same network only
Victim action needed: Not needed
Fix: Available

What is CVE-2026-72388?

CVE-2026-72388 is a vulnerability in Linux, published on 15 Aug 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:

drm/panthor: Always use the IRQ-safe variant when acquiring the fence lock

Since dma_fence objects can be shared with other subsystems, they may be accessed from hardirq context in those drivers, and we have to take that into account by also using the IRQ-safe variant when acquiring the lock.

While at it, switch to the guard model.

Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-72388?

How do I fix CVE-2026-72388?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Is CVE-2026-72388 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-72388 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Sources

Also known as BELL-CVE-2026-72388, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-72388, GHSA-2vh6-fvwq-hq8w, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-72388.