What is CVE-2026-98318?

CVE-2026-98318 is a High severity Linux kernel vulnerability with a CVSS score of 7.8 out of 10, affecting Linux kernel versions from 6.15.6 onward and patched in 7.2.8 and 7.3-rc4. CVE-2026-98318 has not been confirmed as actively exploited and is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

What is the CVSS score for CVE-2026-98318?

CVE-2026-98318 has a CVSS score of 7.8 out of 10, rated High severity. The vector string is CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

Is there a patch available for CVE-2026-98318?

Yes, CVE-2026-98318 has been patched. Fixed versions include 7.2.8 and 7.3-rc4. If you are running Linux kernel 6.15.6 or later up to the fix versions, apply the relevant patch for your kernel branch.

Is CVE-2026-98318 actively exploited?

CVE-2026-98318 has not been confirmed as actively exploited and is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

CVE-2026-98318

High

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: smb: client: validate absolute native symlink targets before NT fixups With symlinkroot unset, an absolute target is copied without conversion to an NT drive path. Later code still assumes an NT prefix is present when modifying the target and calculating the print name length. For "/ab", this causes two failures: sym[5] and path[5] are written past their allocations, and plen -= 2 * poff subtracts an assumed 8-byte prefix from a 6-byte UTF-16 target, wrapping u16 plen to 65534. That underflow causes another overflow: memcpy() copies 65534 bytes into a 24-byte buffer. A user with write access to a mounted share can trigger these bugs with default settings. Validate the NT drive prefix, including an ASCII drive letter, before accessing fixed offsets or subtracting the prefix length.

Package Linux Kernel

Published 2026-10-06

Last modified 2026-10-07

CVSS version 3.1

Patch available

Yes

CVSS 3.1 score

7.8

out of 10

High

Attack Vector

Local

Attack Complexity

Low

Privileges Required

Low

User Interaction

None

Scope

Unchanged

Confidentiality

High

Integrity

High

Availability

High

Vector string

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected versions

Linux kernel versions 6.15.6, 6.16 and later are affected. Fixed in 7.2.8, 7.3-rc4 and their respective stable series.

Affected from

≥ 6.15.6 ≥ 6.16

Fixed in

✓ 7.2.8 7.2.x ✓ 7.3-rc4

References

2 total

Details

CVE ID CVE-2026-98318

Severity High

CVSS score 7.8 / 10

CVSS version 3.1

Published 2026-10-06

Modified 2026-10-07

KEV No

Patch

Yes

Package linux

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-98318?

CVE-2026-98318 is a High severity Linux kernel vulnerability with a CVSS score of 7.8 out of 10 . It affects Linux kernel versions from 6.15.6 onward and has been patched in 7.2.8 and 7.3-rc4. CVE-2026-98318 has not been confirmed as actively exploited and is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
What is the CVSS score for CVE-2026-98318?

CVE-2026-98318 has a CVSS score of 7.8 out of 10, rated High severity (CVSS 3.1). The vector string is CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.
Is there a patch available for CVE-2026-98318?

Yes. CVE-2026-98318 has been patched. Fixed versions include 7.2.8 and 7.3-rc4. If you are running Linux kernel 6.15.6 or later up to the fix versions, apply the relevant patch for your kernel branch.
Is CVE-2026-98318 actively exploited?

No. CVE-2026-98318 has not been confirmed as actively exploited. It is not listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog.