Bug 2541355 (CVE-2026-98135)

Summary: CVE-2026-98135 kernel: ntfs: reject invalid sectors_per_cluster in the boot sector
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security <prodsec-ir-bot>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: unspecifiedCC: akhatavk, aos-team-art-private, asdas, dpaolell, jdelft, jupierce, lgarciaa, mbiarnes, ppalepu, ppostler, prdhamdh, rhel-process-autobot, sghai, sidsharm, suppawar, vlaad, watson-tool-maintainers
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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Fixed In Version: Doc Type: ---
Doc Text:
A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's NTFS file system driver. A local user capable of mounting storage volumes could cause a Denial of Service (DoS) and crash the operating system by mounting a specially crafted NTFS file system image. Due to missing input validation of the cluster configuration in the boot sector, processing the malformed image triggers an invalid bit-shift calculation in the kernel.
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Last Closed: Type: ---
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-09-25 11:33:03 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

ntfs: reject invalid sectors_per_cluster in the boot sector

is_boot_sector_ntfs() checks the boot sector's sectors_per_cluster field
with a range test that rejects 0x81..0xf3 but accepts 0 and other
non-power-of-two counts. A zero value reaches parse_ntfs_boot_sector():

	sectors_per_cluster_bits = ffs(sectors_per_cluster) - 1;
	...
	vol->cluster_size = vol->sector_size << sectors_per_cluster_bits;

ffs(0) is 0, so sectors_per_cluster_bits becomes (unsigned)-1 and the
shift is undefined:

  UBSAN: shift-out-of-bounds in fs/ntfs/super.c:673:39
  shift exponent 4294967295 is too large for 32-bit type 'int'

This change rejects any non-power-of-two value, since it feeds the
aforementioned shift via ffs() - 1, which only yields the correct shift for a
power of two.