fs/ntfs3: Fix NULL pointer dereference in 'ni_write_inode'

published 2025-12-30 10 mo ago modified 2026-10-28 11 d ago also EUVD-2023-60445

cvss: —; not scored
cisa kev: Not listed; not in CISA's catalog
epss: 0.2%; EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 9%
public exploits: 0; none known

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

Syzbot found the following issue: Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 0000000000000016 Mem abort info: ESR = 0x0000000096000006 EC = 0x25: DABT (current EL), IL = 32 bits SET = 0, FnV = 0 EA = 0, S1PTW = 0 FSC = 0x06: level 2 translation fault Data abort info: ISV = 0, ISS = 0x00000006 CM = 0, WnR = 0 user pgtable: 4k pages, 48-bit VAs, pgdp=000000010af56000 [0000000000000016] pgd=08000001090da003, p4d=08000001090da003, pud=08000001090ce003, pmd=0000000000000000 Internal error: Oops: 0000000096000006 [#1] PREEMPT SMP Modules linked in: CPU: 1 PID: 3036 Comm: syz-executor206 Not tainted 6.0.0-rc6-syzkaller-17739-g16c9f284e746 #0 Hardware name: Google Google Compute Engine/Google Compute Engine, BIOS Google 08/26/2022 pstate: 80400005 (Nzcv daif +PAN -UAO -TCO -DIT -SSBS BTYPE=--) pc : is_rec_inuse fs/ntfs3/ntfs.h:313 [inline] pc : ni_write_inode+0xac/0x798 fs/ntfs3/frecord.c:3232 lr : ni_write_inode+0xa0/0x798 fs/ntfs3/frecord.c:3226 sp : ffff8000126c3800 x29: ffff8000126c3860 x28: 0000000000000000 x27: ffff0000c8b02000 x26: ffff0000c7502320 x25: ffff0000c7502288 x24: 0000000000000000 x23: ffff80000cbec91c x22: ffff0000c8b03000 x21: ffff0000c8b02000 x20: 0000000000000001 x19: ffff0000c75024d8 x18: 00000000000000c0 x17: ffff80000dd1b198 x16: ffff80000db59158 x15: ffff0000c4b6b500 x14: 00000000000000b8 x13: 0000000000000000 x12: ffff0000c4b6b500 x11: ff80800008be1b60 x10: 0000000000000000 x9 : ffff0000c4b6b500 x8 : 0000000000000000 x7 : ffff800008be1b50 x6 : 0000000000000000 x5 : 0000000000000000 x4 : 0000000000000001 x3 : 0000000000000000 x2 : 0000000000000008 x1 : 0000000000000001 x0 : 0000000000000000 Call trace: is_rec_inuse fs/ntfs3/ntfs.h:313 [inline] ni_write_inode+0xac/0x798 fs/ntfs3/frecord.c:3232 ntfs_evict_inode+0x54/0x84 fs/ntfs3/inode.c:1744 evict+0xec/0x334 fs/inode.c:665 iput_final fs/inode.c:1748 [inline] iput+0x2c4/0x324 fs/inode.c:1774 ntfs_new_inode+0x7c/0xe0 fs/ntfs3/fsntfs.c:1660 ntfs_create_inode+0x20c/0xe78 fs/ntfs3/inode.c:1278 ntfs_create+0x54/0x74 fs/ntfs3/namei.c:100 lookup_open fs/namei.c:3413 [inline] open_last_lookups fs/namei.c:3481 [inline] path_openat+0x804/0x11c4 fs/namei.c:3688 do_filp_open+0xdc/0x1b8 fs/namei.c:3718 do_sys_openat2+0xb8/0x22c fs/open.c:1311 do_sys_open fs/open.c:1327 [inline] __do_sys_openat fs/open.c:1343 [inline] __se_sys_openat fs/open.c:1338 [inline] __arm64_sys_openat+0xb0/0xe0 fs/open.c:1338 __invoke_syscall arch/arm64/kernel/syscall.c:38 [inline] invoke_syscall arch/arm64/kernel/syscall.c:52 [inline] el0_svc_common+0x138/0x220 arch/arm64/kernel/syscall.c:142 do_el0_svc+0x48/0x164 arch/arm64/kernel/syscall.c:206 el0_svc+0x58/0x150 arch/arm64/kernel/entry-common.c:636 el0t_64_sync_handler+0x84/0xf0 arch/arm64/kernel/entry-common.c:654 el0t_64_sync+0x18c/0x190 Code: 97dafee4 340001b4 f9401328 2a1f03e0 (79402d14) ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]---

Above issue may happens as follows: ntfs_new_inode mi_init mi->mrec = kmalloc(sbi->record_size, GFP_NOFS); -->failed to allocate memory if (!mi->mrec) return -ENOMEM; iput iput_final evict ntfs_evict_inode ni_write_inode is_rec_inuse(ni->mi.mrec)-> As 'ni->mi.mrec' is NULL trigger NULL-ptr-deref

To solve above issue if new inode failed make inode bad before call 'iput()' in 'ntfs_new_inode()'.

Patch / fix

fixed in 1 distros 2 links 4

Linux Linux 5.15.113, 6.1.81, 6.3.4, 6.4

debian ubuntu

linux Debian 12 6.1.82-1
linux Debian 14, Debian 13 6.3.7-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2023-54196

linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-83.92
linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1044.49
linux-gcp Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1041.49
linux-gke Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1041.46
linux-ibm Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1037.40
linux-kvm Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1041.46
linux-azure Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1046.53
linux-gkeop Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1027.32

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2023-54196 updated 2026-11-07

kernel: fs/ntfs3: Fix NULL pointer dereference in 'ni_write_inode'

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel
not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

0.20% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 9% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

Affected products

Linux Linux

Classification

Technology feeds

Linux kernel rss critical rss

References

Sources

CVE List CVE-2023-54196
NVD CVE-2023-54196

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.

Summary