CVE-2026-31716: fs/ntfs3: validate rec->used in journal-replay file record check

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2026-31716 is a high (CVSS 7.8) Out-of-bounds Write vulnerability in linux. EPSS estimates a 0.13% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 2.4% of scored vulnerabilities.

Timeline

1. 01-05-2026
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 05-08-2026
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: fs/ntfs3: validate rec->used in journal-replay file record check check_file_record() validates rec->total against the record size but never validates rec->used. The do_action() journal-replay handlers read rec->used from disk and use it to compute memmove lengths: DeleteAttribute: memmove(attr, ..., used - asize - roff) CreateAttribute: memmove(..., attr, used - roff) change_attr_size: memmove(..., used - PtrOffset(rec, next)) When rec->used is smaller than the offset of a validated attribute, or larger than the record size, these subtractions can underflow allowing us to copy huge amounts of memory in to a 4kb buffer, generally considered a bad idea overall. This requires a corrupted filesystem, which isn't a threat model the kernel really needs to worry about, but checking for such an obvious out-of-bounds value is good to keep things robust, especially on journal replay Fix this up by bounding rec->used correctly. This is much like commit b2bc7c44ed17 ("fs/ntfs3: Fix slab-out-of-bounds read in DeleteIndexEntryRoot") which checked different values in this same switch statement.

• CWE-787Out-of-bounds WriteThe product writes data past the end, or before the beginning, of the intended buffer.