fsnotify: do not generate ACCESS/MODIFY events on child for special files
Key facts
- Attack vector
- —
- Privileges required
- —
- User interaction
- —
- Attack complexity
- —
- Impact type
- Information disclosure
- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
- —
- Fix status
- Partial Red Hat: 5 without a fix
No CVSS vector from any source. Fix status from CNA and Red Hat. Impact type from CWE-200.
Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: fsnotify: do not generate ACCESS/MODIFY events on child for special files inotify/fanotify do not allow users with no read access to a file to subscribe to events (e.g. IN_ACCESS/IN_MODIFY), but they do allow the same user to subscribe for watching events on children when the user has access to the parent directory (e.g. /dev). Users with no read access to a file but with read access to its parent directory can still stat the file and see if it was accessed/modified via atime/mtime change. The same is not true for special files (e.g. /dev/null). Users will not generally observe atime/mtime changes when other users read/write to special files, only when someone sets atime/mtime via utimensat(). Align fsnotify events with this stat behavior and do not generate ACCESS/MODIFY events to parent watchers on read/write of special files. The events are still generated to parent watchers on utimensat(). This closes some side-channels that could be possibly used for information exfiltration [1]. [1] https://snee.la/pdf/pubs/file-notification-attacks.pdf
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
Remediation
- Fix · CNA Linux (Linux) Fixed in 5.10.248, 5.15.198, 6.1.160, 6.6.120, 6.12.64, 6.18.3, 6.19
Vendor assessments
Red Hat
Red Hat rating: Low. Red Hat's page for this CVE →
| Product | Status | Plan or fix |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 | Affected | No fix yet |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 | Affected | No fix planned: Out of support scope |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 | Affected | No fix yet |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 | Affected | No fix yet |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 | Affected | No fix yet |
Timeline
- 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2025-68788
- 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-hgq3-chg9-c98j
- 2026-10-19 Weakness changed · CISA ADP
References
Other 7
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/df2711544b050aba703e6da418c53c7dc5d443ca
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/859bdf438f01d9aa7f84b09c1202d548c7cad9e8
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/6a7d7d96eeeab7af2bd01afbb3d9878a11a13d91
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/e0643d46759db8b84c0504a676043e5e341b6c81
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/82f7416bcbd951549e758d15fc1a96a5afc2e900
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/7a93edb23bcf07a3aaf8b598edfc2faa8fbcc0b6
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/635bc4def026a24e071436f4f356ea08c0eed6ff
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Sources
- CVE-2025-68788 · CVE Program
- CVE-2025-68788 · NVD
- FIRST EPSS
- GHSA-hgq3-chg9-c98j · GitHub Advisory Database · CC BY 4.0
- CVE-2025-68788 · Red Hat security data · CC BY 4.0
This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD. Sources and licences