CVE-2026-43228
Linux Kernel 6.18 – 6.19.6
Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:HCVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.
Summary
CVE-2026-43228 is a medium-severity Reachable Assertion (CWE-617) vulnerability in Linux Linux Kernel. Its CVSS base score is 5.5 (Medium).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Application or System Exploitation (T1499.004); ranked at the 2th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) and SA-8 (Security and Privacy Engineering Principles) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2026-27787
Vulnerability Data
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: hfs: Replace BUG_ON with error handling for CNID count checks In a06ec283e125 next_id, folder_count, and file_count in the super block info were expanded to 64 bits, and BUG_ONs were added…
more
to detect overflow. This triggered an error reported by syzbot: if the MDB is corrupted, the BUG_ON is triggered. This patch replaces this mechanism with proper error handling and resolves the syzbot reported bug. Singed-off-by: Jori Koolstra <jkoolstra@xs4all.nl>
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Developer testing and evaluation finds reachable assertions during development.
Security engineering principles discourage use of assertions for handling untrusted input.
Validating untrusted inputs structurally prevents attacker data from reaching and triggering assertions.
Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Secure SDLC practices directly prevent unsafe assertions from being coded in reachable paths.
Runtime monitoring of software can detect assertion-triggered crashes as adverse events.
Vulnerability identification processes can discover and record reachable-assertion flaws before deployment.
Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Security testing in development can detect reachable assertions before release, reducing the likelihood of exploitation.
Secure development lifecycle mandates defensive coding and input validation that prevent reachable assertions from being triggered by untrusted data.
Application security requirements can specify that assertions must not be reachable from attacker-controlled inputs.
Secure architecture principles discourage the use of assertions for runtime error handling that an attacker could exploit.
Secure coding standards explicitly ban the use of assert() or equivalent statements that can be triggered by external input.