CVE-2026-72188: critical vulnerability in Linux
ntfs: sanitize MFT references returned from ntfs_lookup_inode_by_name()
Published · Updated
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28Vexday Risk Score
No sign of exploitation. No public exploitation artifact known so far.
ssvc Trackcvss 9.1epss 0.5%
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
ntfs: sanitize MFT references returned from ntfs_lookup_inode_by_name()
ntfs_lookup_inode_by_name() returns MFT references read from directory
index entries on disk. These values are untrusted, but the function can
currently return an error-marked MFT reference to its callers without
validating it.
Callers later decode lookup failures with MREF_ERR(). A crafted NTFS image
can set the MREF error bit while leaving the low bits as an arbitrary
value, causing callers to consume a bogus pseudo-errno instead of treating
the lookup result as corrupted on-disk metadata.
Fix this at the source by normalizing every error-marked MFT reference
returned from ntfs_lookup_inode_by_name() to ERR_MREF(-EIO). Apply this to
all four directory lookup return paths so every caller gets a validated
result without needing additional checks or an API change.
This keeps the sanitization in the common lookup helper, which is cleaner
than duplicating validation in each caller.
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H
Affected products
Linux · LinuxRelated CVEs — Linux
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