CVE-2026-53319: blk-wbt: remove WARN_ON_ONCE from wbt_init_enable_default()

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.5 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.1% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2026-06-26 · updated 2026-07-06
Weakness: CWE-617

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: blk-wbt: remove WARN_ON_ONCE from wbt_init_enable_default() wbt_init_enable_default() uses WARN_ON_ONCE to check for failures from wbt_alloc() and wbt_init(). However, both are expected failure paths: - wbt_alloc() can return NULL under memory pressure (-ENOMEM) - wbt_init() can fail with -EBUSY if wbt is already registered syzbot triggers this by injecting memory allocation failures during MTD partition creation via ioctl(BLKPG), causing a spurious warning. wbt_init_enable_default() is a best-effort initialization called from blk_register_queue() with a void return type. Failure simply means the disk operates without writeback throttling, which is harmless. Replace WARN_ON_ONCE with plain if-checks, consistent with how wbt_set_lat() in the same file already handles these failures. Add a pr_warn() for the wbt_init() failure to retain diagnostic information without triggering a full stack trace.

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 7.0 before 7.0.10 — fixed in 7.0.10

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 7.0.10. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

Get alerted when CVE-2026-53319 or the next vulnerability affects your stack