Bug 2516688 (CVE-2026-72478)

Summary: CVE-2026-72478 kernel: fs/ntfs3: add bounds check to run_get_highest_vcn()
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. The `run_get_highest_vcn()` function, which processes NTFS mapping-pairs buffers, does not properly validate buffer boundaries. A crafted NTFS log file, when mounted, can cause the system to read beyond its allocated memory. This memory corruption can lead to a system crash, resulting in a denial of service.
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-08-15 06:25:53 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

fs/ntfs3: add bounds check to run_get_highest_vcn()

run_get_highest_vcn() parses a packed NTFS mapping-pairs buffer without
any length bound, relying solely on a 0x00 terminator to stop.  A
crafted $LogFile UpdateMappingPairs record whose embedded attribute
contains mapping-pairs runs without a terminator causes the function to
read past the slab allocation, triggering a KASAN slab-out-of-bounds
read on mount.

The sibling function run_unpack() received an analogous bounds-check in
commit b62567bca474 ("ntfs3: add buffer boundary checks to run_unpack()"),
but run_get_highest_vcn() was missed.

Take a run_buf_size parameter and reject any run header whose payload
would extend past the buffer end, mirroring the pattern used by
run_unpack().  The caller in fslog.c passes the remaining attribute
bytes after the mapping-pairs offset.

KASAN report (on mainline v7.1 merge window HEAD):

  BUG: KASAN: slab-out-of-bounds in run_get_highest_vcn+0x3c0/0x410
  Read of size 1 at addr ffff88800e2d5400 by task mount/72
  Call Trace:
   run_get_highest_vcn+0x3c0/0x410
   do_action.isra.0+0x3ba8/0x7b50
   log_replay+0x9ddd/0x10200
   ntfs_loadlog_and_replay+0x4ad/0x610
   ntfs_fill_super+0x214a/0x4540