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TI-2026-50473 Aliases CVE-2026-72193GHSA-33rw-p5m7-q9c2

ntfs3: cap RESTART_TABLE free-chain walker at rt->used

Priority LOW 22Published · Updated

Key facts

Attack vector
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Privileges required
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User interaction
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Attack complexity
—
Impact type
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Confidentiality · integrity · availability
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Fix status
Fixed

No CVSS vector from any source. Fix status from CNA.

Summary

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ntfs3: cap RESTART_TABLE free-chain walker at rt->used A crafted NTFS3 disk image triggers an in-kernel infinite loop at mount time, hanging the mounting thread and firing the soft-lockup watchdog within ~22s on multi-CPU hosts (panic with kernel.softlockup_panic=1). The bug is reachable from desktop USB auto-mount on distributions where udisks2 routes the NTFS signature to the in-tree ntfs3 driver (Arch family and an increasing fraction of Fedora / openSUSE / RHEL deployments); CAP_SYS_ADMIN-class manual mount elsewhere. check_rstbl()'s second walker iterates the free-entry singly-linked list headed by rt->first_free with no upper bound on iteration count: for (off = ff; off;) { if (off == RESTART_ENTRY_ALLOCATED) return false; off = le32_to_cpu(*(__le32 *)Add2Ptr(rt, off)); if (off > ts - sizeof(__le32)) return false; } The existing guards cover three exits: end-of-list (off == 0), the in-use marker (off == RESTART_ENTRY_ALLOCATED), and out-of-bounds (off > ts - sizeof(__le32)). None of the three prevents an in-bounds cycle. A crafted on-disk RESTART_TABLE whose free chain contains a self-loop or A->B->A cycle whose offsets satisfy: - in range [sizeof(struct RESTART_TABLE), ts - sizeof(__le32)] - (off - sizeof(struct RESTART_TABLE)) % rsize == 0 passes all existing guards and spins the mount-time thread forever. Reproduced in UML by hand-forging a 2 MB NTFS3 image whose journal RESTART_TABLE first_free = 0x18 and whose entry at offset 0x18 stores 0x18 as its next pointer; mount of the forged image with the in-tree ntfs3 driver never returns. Bound the walker by rt->used. Each entry on a legitimate free chain is unique, and the total slot count is ne = le16_to_cpu (rt->used). A traversal that visits more than ne slots is by construction malformed; reject it as a corrupt RESTART_TABLE. After this patch, mount of the forged image returns with -EINVAL and a log_replay failure message, and mkntfs-produced legitimate images mount cleanly (verified in the same UML harness).

Why it matters now

Exploitation None reported CISA SSVC · not in CISA KEV
EPSS 0.00215 11th percentileScored 2026-11-07
Fix Fixed Linux (Linux): 5.15.212, 6.1.178, 6.6.145 +4

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

VendorProductAffected versionsFixed inStatusSource
LinuxLinux5.15 and later5.15.212, 6.1.178, 6.6.145, 6.12.97, 6.18.40, 7.1.5, 7.2Patch availableCNA
  • Linux VendorLinux Affected 5.15 and later Fixed in 5.15.212, 6.1.178, 6.6.145, 6.12.97, 6.18.40, 7.1.5, 7.2 Patch available CNA

CPE names Threatist (inferred) · 1

Inferred from how NVD named this product before; not given by a source.

CPEVersionsRoleVendor
cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:*——Linux
  • cpe:2.3:o:linux:linux_kernel:*:*:*:*:*:*:*:* Versions — — ·Linux

Remediation

  • Fix · CNA Linux (Linux) Fixed in 5.15.212, 6.1.178, 6.6.145, 6.12.97, 6.18.40, 7.1.5, 7.2

Vendor assessments

Red Hat

Red Hat rating: Moderate. Red Hat's page for this CVE →

Not affected: 5 products
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9

Timeline

  1. 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2026-72193
  2. 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-33rw-p5m7-q9c2
  3. 2026-11-06 CISA SSVC decision points changed

References

  • TI-2025-26358 tls: fix handling of zero-length records on the rx_list KEVCVSS 3.1CRITICAL 9.8
  • TI-2026-38352 netfilter: bridge: make ebt_snat ARP rewrite writable KEVCVSS 3.1HIGH 8.8
  • TI-2021-02452 Incorrect authorization in Ubuntu linux kernel KEVCVSS 3.1HIGH 8.8
  • TI-2013-05264 The (1) get_user and (2) put_user API functions in the Linux kernel before 3.5.5 on the… KEVCVSS 3.1HIGH 8.8
  • TI-2022-00125 Integer overflow in kernel KEVCVSS 3.1HIGH 8.4
  • 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
See all 21741 →

Sources