CVE-2026-72212

Name	CVE-2026-72212
Description	In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/memory_hotplug: fix incorrect altmap passing in error path In create_altmaps_and_memory_blocks(), when arch_add_memory() succeeds with memmap_on_memory enabled, the vmemmap pages are allocated from params.altmap. If create_memory_block_devices() subsequently fails, the error path calls arch_remove_memory() with a NULL altmap instead of params.altmap. This is a bug that could lead to memory corruption. Since altmap is NULL, vmemmap_free() falls back to freeing the vmemmap pages into the system buddy allocator via free_pages() instead of the altmap. arch_remove_memory() then immediately destroys the physical linear mapping for this memory. This injects unowned pages into the buddy allocator, causing machine checks or memory corruption if the system later attempts to allocate and use those freed pages. Fix this by passing params.altmap to arch_remove_memory() in the error path.
Source	CVE (at NVD; CERT, ENISA, LWN, oss-sec, fulldisc, Debian ELTS, Red Hat, Ubuntu, Gentoo, SUSE bugzilla/CVE, GitHub advisories/code/issues, web search, more)

Vulnerable and fixed packages

The table below lists information on source packages.

Source Package	Release	Version	Status
linux (PTS)	bookworm	6.1.176-1	fixed
	bookworm (security)	6.1.187-1	fixed
	trixie	6.12.94-1	vulnerable
	trixie (security)	6.12.107-1	fixed
	forky	7.1.12-1	fixed
	sid	7.1.13-1	fixed

The information below is based on the following data on fixed versions.

Package	Type	Release	Fixed Version
linux	source	bullseye	(not affected)
linux	source	bookworm	(not affected)
linux	source	trixie	6.12.100-1
linux	source	(unstable)	7.1.5-1

Notes

[bookworm] - linux <not-affected> (Vulnerable code not present)
[bullseye] - linux <not-affected> (Vulnerable code not present)
https://git.kernel.org/linus/2fac4afa0e2e68841334c78c1821e49f74fbc66a (7.2-rc1)