CVE-2026-80820 xfs: don't livelock in scrub on a circular unlinked list
A local attacker can cause a denial of service in the Linux kernel by triggering a livelock in the XFS filesystem scrubber via a circular unlinked inode list.
- 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-2026-80820?
CVE-2026-80820 is a denial of service vulnerability in Linux, published on 4 Sep 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:
xfs: don't livelock in scrub on a circular unlinked list
LOLLM points out that online fsck can livelock if an unlinked inode list contains a loop. Use a bitmap to detect cycles.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-80820?
How do I fix CVE-2026-80820?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.
Is CVE-2026-80820 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-80820 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as AZL-99446, BELL-CVE-2026-80820, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-80820, GHSA-jq8r-f7j2-pxv4, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-80820.