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Fencer Vulns
no cvss —

CVE-2026-74484 json

binfmt_misc: don't let an 'F' entry pin its own instance

published 2026-08-15 2 mo ago modified 2026-11-06 2 d ago also EUVD-2026-59677

cvss
—
not scored
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 6%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

binfmt_misc: don't let an 'F' entry pin its own instance

An entry registered with 'F' opens its interpreter at registration time and holds that file until the entry is freed. Any entry nobody removes by hand only gets closed once the binfmt_misc superblock is shut down. If the interpreter lives on a mount that keeps that superblock alive the two pin each other:

binfmt_misc sb -> inode -> entry -> interp_file -> vfsmount -> binfmt_misc sb

TL;DR the file is never closed. Once the mount namespace is gone there is nothing left to unregister through either.

There are two ways to trigger this bug:

- Point the interpreter at the instance itself. Its files are regular files owned by the mounter and both bm_get_inode() and simple_fill_super() leave i_op at empty_iops. So notify_change() falls back to simple_setattr() and chmod +x works. We never set SB_I_NOEXEC and so open_exec() accepts it.

- Use the instance as an overlayfs lower layer. The overlay superblock holds a clone_private_mount() of every layer until it is destroyed and that clone is in no namespace. So umount_tree() never reaches it.

That's a DoS. And it isn't only the superblock that leaks. It pins the user namespace it was mounted in, so every iteration permanently eats one of the caller's user namespace charges.

So let's just do the sane thing. SB_I_NOEXEC makes open_exec() fail on the instance's own files and s_stack_depth makes overlayfs reject the layer before it ever takes a clone. That also covers the ecryptfs and fuse passthrough variants. What 'F' promises is unchanged.

The stable tag is narrower than the Fixes tags on purpose. Before sandboxed mounts this needed global root against the single instance everyone shares, and the change doesn't apply to those trees anyway.

Note that SB_I_NODEV is implicitly raised for userns mounts but raise it explicitly here as well.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.12.103, 6.18.44, 7.1.8, 7.2
  • linux Debian 13 6.12.105-1
  • linux Debian 14 7.1.8-1
  • linux-6.12 Debian 12 6.12.107-1~deb12u1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-74484

  • linux Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-42.42
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1016.17
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1016.18
  • linux-ibm Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1017.17
  • linux-riscv Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-42.42.1
  • linux-oracle Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1015.16
  • linux-hwe-7.0 Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 7.0.0-42.42~24.04.1
  • linux-oem-7.0 Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1017.17

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2026-74484

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • kernel-default SLES 16.0, SLE High Availability Extension 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2 +1 more 6.12.0-160000.39.1
  • kernel-rt Linux Micro 6.2 6.12.0-160000.39.1
  • kernel-64kb SLES 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.39.1
  • kernel-source SLES 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.39.1
  • kernel-default-base SLES 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.39.1.160000.2.26
  • kernel-syms SLES 16.0, Linux Micro Extras 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.39.1
  • kernel-azure SLES for SAP applications 16.0, SLES 16.0 6.12.0-160000.39.1
  • kernel-obs-qa SLES for SAP applications 16.0, SLES 16.0 6.12.0-160000.39.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2026:24197-1SUSE-SU-2026:24184-1SUSE-SU-2026:24235-1SUSE-SU-2026:24179-1

  • kernel-rt openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.39.1
  • dtb-aarch64 openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.39.1
  • kernel-64kb openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.39.1
  • kernel-syms openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.39.1
  • kernel-azure openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.39.1
  • kernel-obs-qa openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.39.1
  • kernel-source openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.39.1
  • kernel-default openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.39.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:22091-1

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2026-74484 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: binfmt_misc: don't let an 'F' entry pin its own instance

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel
    affected: workaround, no fix available “Fix deferred”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
2 d ago

Exploit prediction

0.17% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 6% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Technology feeds

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.