CVE-2026-45972
Published: 27 May 2026
Summary
CVE-2026-45972 is a critical-severity Use After Free (CWE-416) vulnerability in Linux Linux Kernel. Its CVSS base score is 9.8 (Critical).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked at the 25.2th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2026-32256
Vulnerability details
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: smb: client: fix potential UAF and double free in smb2_open_file() Zero out @err_iov and @err_buftype before retrying SMB2_open() to prevent an UAF bug if @data != NULL, otherwise a double…
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free.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI
Why these techniques?
Kernel UAF/double-free in SMB client enables local/remote privilege escalation via memory corruption exploitation.
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Likely Mitigating Controls AI
Per-CVE control mapping for this CVE has not run yet; the list below is derived from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry.
Use-after-free exploits that achieve arbitrary code execution are blocked or significantly hardened by non-executable pages and ASLR.