published September 17, 2026
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
exfat: fix valid_size extension over a shared writable mapping
When a shared writable mapping has its valid_size extended by a buffered
write or a page fault, exfat zeroes the page-cache gap below the new
valid_size. A store through the mapping can race with this zeroing and be
overwritten.
Fix this by zeroing the gap lazily. Drop ->map_pages so that every first
write fault goes through exfat_page_mkwrite(), which advances valid_size to
cover the faulting page. With fault-around enabled, a store could install a
writable PTE, skip ->page_mkwrite(), and land past valid_size without
advancing it. Extending valid_size one faulting page at a time also leaves
never-written pages in a large mapping alone.
The gap is filled with block granularity, zeroing only the not-uptodate
blocks and preserving blocks that may hold data stored through the mapping.
On the buffered-write path the invalidate lock is held and the gap is
unmapped before zeroing, so a racing store re-faults and, under the inode
lock, completes only after the gap has been zeroed and valid_size covers
it.