Bug 2516312 (CVE-2026-72197)

Summary: CVE-2026-72197 kernel: fs/ntfs3: bound DeleteIndexEntryAllocation memmove length
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: unspecifiedCC: rhel-process-autobot, watson-tool-maintainers
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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Doc Text:
A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's NTFS3 file system driver. A local attacker can exploit this vulnerability by mounting a specially crafted NTFS image. This manipulation causes an incorrect calculation of memory movement length, leading to an out-of-bounds write operation. The primary consequence is a kernel crash, resulting in a denial of service (DoS) for the system.
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-08-15 06:05:53 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

fs/ntfs3: bound DeleteIndexEntryAllocation memmove length

In do_action()'s DeleteIndexEntryAllocation case, e->size comes
from an on-disk INDEX_BUFFER entry.  When e->size makes
e + e->size point past hdr + hdr->used,
PtrOffset(e1, Add2Ptr(hdr, used)) returns a negative ptrdiff_t
that is silently cast to a quasi-infinite size_t when passed
to memmove().  The memmove then walks past the destination
buffer.

The sibling DeleteIndexEntryRoot case at fslog.c:3540-3543
already carries the corresponding guard:

	if (PtrOffset(e1, Add2Ptr(hdr, used)) < esize ||
	    Add2Ptr(e, esize) > Add2Ptr(lrh, rec_len) ||
	    used + esize > le32_to_cpu(hdr->total)) {
		goto dirty_vol;
	}

Apply the same shape to the allocation-path case.  Also reject
esize == 0: memmove(e, e, ...) is a no-op and leaves
hdr->used unchanged, hiding a malformed entry from the
existing check_index_header() walk.

Reproduced under UML+KASAN on mainline 8d90b09e6741 by
mounting a crafted NTFS image: the unguarded memmove takes a
length of 0xffffffffffffff00 and the kernel oopses in
memmove+0x81/0x1a0 on the do_action+0x36a2 frame.

[almaz.alexandrovich: clang-formatted the changes]