CVE-2026-72043
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: LoongArch: Fix missing dirty page tracking in {pte,pmd}_wrprotect() When hardware page table walker (PTW) is enabled on LoongArch, the CPU may set _PAGE_DIRTY directly in the page table entry during a write TLB miss, without going through the software TLB store handler. The software TLB store handler (tlbex.S:254) sets both _PAGE_DIRTY and_PAGE_MODIFIED together: ori t0, t0, (_PAGE_VALID | _PAGE_DIRTY | _PAGE_MODIFIED) Since hardware PTW only sets _PAGE_DIRTY, the software-only bit, i.e. _PAGE_MODIFIED is left unchanged. This creates a window where a PTE has _PAGE_DIRTY set (hardware knows the page is dirty) but _PAGE_MODIFIED clear (software is unaware). When fork()/clone() triggers copy-on-write, __copy_present_ptes() calls pte_wrprotect(), which unconditionally clears both the _PAGE_WRITE and _PAGE_DIRTY bits: pte_val(pte) &= ~(_PAGE_WRITE | _PAGE_DIRTY); Since _PAGE_MODIFIED was never set, the dirtiness information is lost completely. Subsequently, when memory pressure triggers page reclaim, page_mkclean() / try_to_unmap() sees the page as clean (i.e. pte_dirty() returns false) and the page may be freed without writeback, causing data corruption. Fix this by propagating the _PAGE_DIRTY bit to the _PAGE_MODIFIED bit in both pte_wrprotect() and pmd_wrprotect() before clearing writeable bits: if (pte_val(pte) & _PAGE_DIRTY) pte_val(pte) |= _PAGE_MODIFIED; The pmd_wrprotect() fix handles the CONFIG_TRANSPARENT_HUGEPAGE case, where pmd entries need the same treatment. This ensures the software dirty tracking bit (checked by pte_dirty() and pmd_dirty(), which read both the _PAGE_DIRTY and _PAGE_MODIFIED bits) is preserved across fork COW write-protection. The issue was found by the LTP madvise09 test case, which exercises page reclaim after "madvise(MADV_FREE), write and fork" operation sequence on private anonymous mappings.
Affected versions
Linux kernel versions
5.19
and later are affected. Fixed in
6.1.178,
6.6.145,
6.12.97,
6.18.40,
7.1.5,
7.2-rc1
and their respective stable series.
References
6 totalFrequently asked questions
-
What is CVE-2026-72043?
CVE-2026-72043 is a unscored severity Linux kernel vulnerability . It affects Linux kernel versions from 5.19 onward and has been patched in 6.1.178, 6.6.145, 6.12.97 and others. CVE-2026-72043 has not been confirmed as actively exploited and is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
-
Is there a patch available for CVE-2026-72043?
Yes. CVE-2026-72043 has been patched. Fixed versions include 6.1.178, 6.6.145, 6.12.97 and others. If you are running Linux kernel 5.19 or later up to the fix versions, apply the relevant patch for your kernel branch.
-
Is CVE-2026-72043 actively exploited?
No. CVE-2026-72043 has not been confirmed as actively exploited. It is not listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog.