Critical · published August 28, 2026
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
ntfs: bound the look-ahead attribute-list entry in ntfs_external_attr_find()
When resolving an attribute lookup with a non-zero @lowest_vcn,
ntfs_external_attr_find() peeks at the next $ATTRIBUTE_LIST entry to
decide whether to keep searching, but bounds that not-yet-validated
entry only with "(u8 *)next_al_entry + 6 < al_end" (which proves just
bytes 0..6 are in range) and "(u8 *)next_al_entry + length <= al_end"
with an attacker-controlled, non-8-aligned length. It then reads
next_al_entry->lowest_vcn (an __le64 at offset 8) and the name at
next_al_entry->name_offset, both of which can lie past al_end -- the
exact end of the kvmalloc'd attribute-list buffer (allocated at the
on-disk attr_list_size, no rounding). A crafted on-disk $ATTRIBUTE_LIST
whose last entry sits a few bytes before al_end therefore yields a slab
out-of-bounds read when the inode is read.
Validate the look-ahead entry with ntfs_attr_list_entry_is_valid() (added
in patch 1/3) before dereferencing lowest_vcn and the name, so the same
fixed-header, length and name bounds the main attribute-list walk uses now
guard this read too.