hfsplus: prevent corruption in shrinking truncate
Key facts
- Attack vector
- Local
- Privileges required
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Attack complexity
- Low
- Impact type
- —
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
- None · High · High
- Fix status
- Partial Red Hat: 2 without a fix
Attack profile from CVSS 3.1 · CNA. Fix status from CNA and Red Hat.
Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: hfsplus: prevent corruption in shrinking truncate I believe there are some issues introduced by commit 31651c607151 ("hfsplus: avoid deadlock on file truncation") HFS+ has extent records which always contains 8 extents. In case the first extent record in catalog file gets full, new ones are allocated from extents overflow file. In case shrinking truncate happens to middle of an extent record which locates in extents overflow file, the logic in hfsplus_file_truncate() was changed so that call to hfs_brec_remove() is not guarded any more. Right action would be just freeing the extents that exceed the new size inside extent record by calling hfsplus_free_extents(), and then check if the whole extent record should be removed. However since the guard (blk_cnt > start) is now after the call to hfs_brec_remove(), this has unfortunate effect that the last matching extent record is removed unconditionally. To reproduce this issue, create a file which has at least 10 extents, and then perform shrinking truncate into middle of the last extent record, so that the number of remaining extents is not under or divisible by 8. This causes the last extent record (8 extents) to be removed totally instead of truncating into middle of it. Thus this causes corruption, and lost data. Fix for this is simply checking if the new truncated end is below the start of this extent record, making it safe to remove the full extent record. However call to hfs_brec_remove() can't be moved to it's previous place since we're dropping ->tree_lock and it can cause a race condition and the cached info being invalidated possibly corrupting the node data. Another issue is related to this one. When entering into the block (blk_cnt > start) we are not holding the ->tree_lock. We break out from the loop not holding the lock, but hfs_find_exit() does unlock it. Not sure if it's possible for someone else to take the lock under our feet, but it can cause hard to debug errors and premature unlocking. Even if there's no real risk of it, the locking should still always be kept in balance. Thus taking the lock now just before the check.
Why it matters now
SSVC decision points
CISA ADP · SSVC 2.0.3
- Exploitation
- None
- Automatable
- No
- Technical impact
- Partial
The decision (Track, Attend, Act) also depends on your mission and well-being impact; see CISA's SSVC guide.
Affected products
| Vendor | Product | Affected versions | Fixed in | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Linux | Linux | 4.19 and later | 4.19.191, 5.4.120, 5.10.38, 5.11.22, 5.12.5, 5.13 | Patch available | CNA |
- Linux VendorLinux Affected 4.19 and later Fixed in 4.19.191, 5.4.120, 5.10.38, 5.11.22, 5.12.5, 5.13 Patch available CNA
Remediation
- Fix · CNA Linux (Linux) Fixed in 4.19.191, 5.4.120, 5.10.38, 5.11.22, 5.12.5, 5.13
Vendor assessments
Red Hat
Red Hat rating: Moderate. Red Hat's page for this CVE →
| Product | Status | Plan or fix |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 | Affected | No fix planned: Out of support scope |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 | Affected | No fix planned: Out of support scope |
Not affected: 2 products
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9
Timeline
- 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2021-46989
- 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-758g-j8h5-xvgg
References
Patch 6
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/52dde855663e5db824af51db39b5757d2ef3e28a
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/c451a6bafb5f422197d31536f82116aed132b72c
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/adbd8a2a8cc05d9e501f93e5c95c59307874cc99
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/c477f62db1a0c0ecaa60a29713006ceeeb04b685
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/97314e45aa1223a42d60256a62c5d9af54baf446
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/c3187cf32216313fb316084efac4dab3a8459b1d
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- TI-2013-01864 The perf_swevent_init function in kernel/events/core.c in the Linux kernel before 3.8.9… KEVCVSS 3.1HIGH 8.4
- TI-2021-05514 Heap Out-Of-Bounds Write in Netfilter IP6T_SO_SET_REPLACE KEVCVSS 3.1HIGH 8.3
Sources
- CVE-2021-46989 · CVE Program
- CVE-2021-46989 · NVD
- FIRST EPSS
- GHSA-758g-j8h5-xvgg · GitHub Advisory Database · CC BY 4.0
- CVE-2021-46989 · Red Hat security data · CC BY 4.0
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