Executive brief
A vulnerability in the Linux kernel's NTFS3 file system driver could allow a system crash or memory corruption when processing a specially crafted NTFS storage device. This occurs when the system attempts to replay file system logs from a malformed disk image. An attacker with physical access or the ability to mount a malicious disk image could exploit this to disrupt system operations.
Technical details
An out-of-bounds access vulnerability exists in the log_replay() function of the fs/ntfs3 driver. The issue stems from a lack of validation for the 'lcns_follow' field in DIR_PAGE_ENTRY_32 records when converting them to DIR_PAGE_ENTRY records during version 0 restart table replays. An attacker can provide a malformed NTFS image with an oversized lcns_follow value, which is used directly to calculate the length of a memmove() operation. This results in reading or writing beyond the allocated restart table buffer. The fix introduces validation to ensure lcns_follow does not exceed the validated restart table entry size.
Affected products
- Linux Linux Kernel ntfs3 driver
Timeline
- 2026-07-27: disclosed
- 2026-07-27: advisory
References
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/159f694d682e4215b3822ae31ed3a4631628fe55
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/32b9f8733feb241627fa5f564b1a99b5cae974c5
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/57c071e2c4f30b9c6f5aacb6679aab1269fbae99
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/6a4c53a2e26a865565bd6a460961e8d6fcb32329
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/7adb38279812c9c06b0e3fa7382f4d7887f3fa2d
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ca343a99806b4fc8e27c48f08be3445c5fcd1445
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ddfc8683e1a627dbf1b83bacf8961443dd654258