CVE-2026-98979 namespace: refuse an automount below a mount that is in no namespace
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2026-98979?
CVE-2026-98979 is a vulnerability in Linux, published on 23 Oct 2026.
Official description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
namespace: refuse an automount below a mount that is in no namespace
It's possible to add autmounts even when the parent mount isn't in the mount namespace of the caller. The only requirement we have is that the parent mount namespace must not be NULL, i.e., unmounted.
Problem is that clone_private_mount() has MNT_NS_INTERNAL which makes that trivially true. So that passes the test and attach_recursive_mnt() accepts that as a mount point and funny enough, count_mounts() dereferences MNT_NS_INTERNAL. The problem is it is an error pointer...
So we can reach this in userspace via fanotify. A filesystem mark on the lower filesystem of an overlay reports paths on the layer clone and reading the event hands out a descriptor on it. For example with debugfs as the lower layer it goes kaboom:
openat(evfd, "tracing", O_DIRECTORY)
Oops: general protection fault KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x1d0-0x1d7] RIP: 0010:count_mounts+0x35/0x200 attach_recursive_mnt finish_automount
And since that sleeping beauty happens under namespace_sem held for writing every mount operation on the system blocks from then on. Congrats.
Use is_mounted() instead which rejects unmounted and internal mounts alike. The open fails with EINVAL just as it did before clone_private_mount() used MNT_NS_INTERNAL.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-98979?
How do I fix CVE-2026-98979?
Upgrade to a fixed version.
Is CVE-2026-98979 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-98979 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as AZL-110810, BELL-CVE-2026-98979, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-98979, GHSA-xhgj-mp6g-fw2x, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-98979.