Vulnerability in linux (DEBIAN-CVE-2026-72016)
Summary
Vulnerability in linux (DEBIAN-CVE-2026-72016). Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure. Exploitable via maxcpus. Mitigation: upgrade to 7.1.5-1 or later.
Original description
The description as published by the source.
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: cpu/hotplug: Fix NULL kobject warning in cpuhp_smt_enable() On arm64, when booting with maxcpus greater than the number of present CPUs (e.g., QEMU -smp cpus=4,maxcpus=8), some CPUs are marked as 'present' but have not yet been registered via register_cpu(). Consequently, the per-cpu device objects for these CPUs are not yet initialized. In cpuhp_smt_enable(), the code iterates over all present CPUs. Calling _cpu_up() for these unregistered CPUs eventually leads to sysfs_create_group() being called with a NULL kobject (or a kobject without a directory), triggering the following warning in fs/sysfs/group.c: WARNING: fs/sysfs/group.c:137 at internal_create_group+0x41c/0x4bc, CPU#2: sh/181 [...] Call trace: internal_create_group+0x41c/0x4bc (P) sysfs_create_group+0x18/0x24 topology_add_dev+0x1c/0x28 cpuhp_invoke_callback+0x104/0x20c __cpuhp_invoke_callback_range+0x94/0x11c _cpu_up+0x200/0x37c When booting with ACPI, arm64 smp_prepare_cpus() currently sets all enumerated CPUs as "present" regardless of their status in the MADT. This causes issues with SMT hotplug control. For instance, with QEMU's "-smp 4,maxcpus=8" configuration, the MADT GICC entries are populated as follows: 1. The first four CPUs: Enabled set but Online Capable not set. 2. The remaining four CPUs: Online Capable set but Enabled not set to support potential hot-plugging. Fix this by: 1. When…
Source: OSV.dev (Open Source Vulnerabilities) OSV
Auto-generated summary
Assembled by SecPulse from the source data (CVSS, CWE, affected versions) using templates — no AI involved. Check the original description and references below for exact details.
A vulnerability tracked as DEBIAN-CVE-2026-72016 has been found in linux.
Attackers can target a specific entry point like maxcpus over the network to misuse the product.
Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.
What to do: upgrade linux to 7.1.5-1 or later.
If unsure, ask your IT team or search "linux DEBIAN-CVE-2026-72016" on the vendor's site.
DEBIAN-CVE-2026-72016 (linux)
Attack surface: maxcpus / Enabled
Patched: 7.1.5-1 — apply immediately
Plan: 1) Audit SBOM/dependencies, 2) Stage→prod upgrade, 3) Add WAF/proxy monitoring on affected endpoints, 4) Hunt IOCs in logs.
Refs: see the GHSA / vendor advisory / patched release linked on this page.
A vulnerability (unclassified) exists in linux. Attackers reach the vulnerable code path via maxcpus.
Check the vendor advisory for the affected versions of linux. Attack surface: maxcpus / Enabled.
Severity: ?. Risk of unauthorized operations or information disclosure.
Update to 7.1.5-1.
Until the patch is applied: disable the affected feature, apply WAF rules, or restrict access via network ACLs.
Search webserver/proxy logs for unusual request patterns matching this CVE's known IOCs. Run grep -r 'linux' . against your dependency files (package-lock.json, requirements.txt, go.sum) to find affected services.
Response actions
Concrete steps and command examples for SOC/SRE teams to execute in order
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1Identify exposure identify
grep -r 'linux' . | grep -v node_modulesリポジトリと本番環境の依存ファイル (package-lock.json / requirements.txt / go.sum / Gemfile.lock 等) で
linuxを grep し、稼働しているサービス・バージョンを把握する。 -
2Apply patch patch
Upgrade linux to 7.1.5-1ステージング環境で 7.1.5-1 に上げて回帰テスト → 本番反映。回帰テストはアプリの主要ハッピーパスを含めること。
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3Post-deployment verification verify
Confirm patched version is live in productionパッチ適用後、ステージングで PoC または同等の悪用パターンを再現して脆弱性が閉じたことを確認。本番ではアクセスログ・WAF でアラート再発が無いか継続監視。
Affected packages
References
- advisory security-tracker.debian.org