CVE-2025-71265CWE-835

CVE-2025-71265

Medium · published March 18, 2026

CVSS v3.1
5.5
EPSS
0%
Percentile
2.3
In the wild
Unconfirmed
What it is

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

fs: ntfs3: fix infinite loop in attr_load_runs_range on inconsistent metadata

We found an infinite loop bug in the ntfs3 file system that can lead to a

Denial-of-Service (DoS) condition.

A malformed NTFS image can cause an infinite loop when an attribute header

indicates an empty run list, while directory entries reference it as

containing actual data. In NTFS, setting evcn=-1 with svcn=0 is a valid way

to represent an empty run list, and run_unpack() correctly handles this by

checking if evcn + 1 equals svcn and returning early without parsing any run

data. However, this creates a problem when there is metadata inconsistency,

where the attribute header claims to be empty (evcn=-1) but the caller

expects to read actual data. When run_unpack() immediately returns success

upon seeing this condition, it leaves the runs_tree uninitialized with

run->runs as a NULL. The calling function attr_load_runs_range() assumes

that a successful return means that the runs were loaded and sets clen to 0,

expecting the next run_lookup_entry() call to succeed. Because runs_tree

remains uninitialized, run_lookup_entry() continues to fail, and the loop

increments vcn by zero (vcn += 0), leading to an infinite loop.

This patch adds a retry counter to detect when run_lookup_entry() fails

consecutively after attr_load_runs_vcn(). If the run is still not found on

the second attempt, it indicates corrupted metadata and returns -EINVAL,

preventing the Denial-of-Service (DoS) vulnerability.

The record
Technical detail
CVSS v3.1
5.5 · MEDIUM
Vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CVSS v4.0
Not supplied
EPSS
0.00129 · 2.3th percentile
Weakness
CWE-835 · Loop with Unreachable Exit Condition ('Infinite Loop')
Published
2026-03-18T15:16Z
Affected products (6)
ProductVersionsFixed in
linux/linux_kernel≥ 5.15, < 5.15.2025.15.202
linux/linux_kernel≥ 5.16, < 6.1.1656.1.165
linux/linux_kernel≥ 6.2, < 6.6.1286.6.128
linux/linux_kernel≥ 6.7, < 6.12.756.12.75
linux/linux_kernel≥ 6.13, < 6.18.166.18.16
linux/linux_kernel≥ 6.19, < 6.19.66.19.6
References (10)
EPSS history
Timeline
  • 18 MAR 10:05Z
    fs: ntfs3: fix infinite loop in attr_load_runs_range on inconsistent metadata
    cvelistv5