In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: dm-thin: fix metadata...

Description

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

dm-thin: fix metadata refcount underflow

There's a bug in dm-thin in the function rebalance_children. If the
internal btree node has one entry, the code tries to copy all btree
entries from the node's child to the node itself and then decrement the
child's reference count.

If the child node is shared (it has reference count > 1), we won't free
it, so there would be two pointers to each of the grandchildren nodes.
But the reference counts of the grandchildren is not increased, thus the
reference count doesn't match the number of pointers that point to the
grandchildren. This results in "device mapper: space map common: unable
to decrement block" errors.

Fix this bug by incrementing reference counts on the grandchildren if the
btree node is shared.

Basic information

Type
unreviewed
Severity
high
Advisory on GitHub
Open advisory ↗
Repository advisory
Source code
Not specified
Published (advisory)
2026-05-28 12:30:28 UTC
Updated
2026-06-25 21:31:22 UTC
NVD published
2026-05-28

EPSS Score

Score Percentile
0.13% 2.86%

CVSS Scores

Base score Version Severity Vector
7.8 3.1
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.

Identifiers

CWEs

CWE id Name
CWE-191 Integer Underflow (Wrap or Wraparound)

References

cvelogic Threat Intelligence