linux-cve-announce - CVE-2023-54196: fs/ntfs3: Fix NULL pointer dereference in 'ni_write

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Message-ID: <2025123029-CVE-2023-54196-8081@gregkh>
Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2025 13:10:04 +0100
From: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>
To: linux-cve-announce@...r.kernel.org
Cc: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...nel.org>
Subject: CVE-2023-54196: fs/ntfs3: Fix NULL pointer dereference in 'ni_write_inode'

From: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...nel.org>

Description
===========

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

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

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()'.

The Linux kernel CVE team has assigned CVE-2023-54196 to this issue.


Affected and fixed versions
===========================

	Fixed in 5.15.113 with commit 6d3d3283e6b4fb3f3ee05dac30ee1461930b8103
	Fixed in 6.1.81 with commit 329fc4d3f73d865b25f2ee4eafafb040ace37ad5
	Fixed in 6.3.4 with commit 1c5cffe0d662fb2de7b63176c2582abb69b5f538
	Fixed in 6.4 with commit db2a3cc6a3481076da6344cc62a80a4e2525f36f

Please see https://www.kernel.org for a full list of currently supported
kernel versions by the kernel community.

Unaffected versions might change over time as fixes are backported to
older supported kernel versions.  The official CVE entry at
	https://cve.org/CVERecord/?id=CVE-2023-54196
will be updated if fixes are backported, please check that for the most
up to date information about this issue.


Affected files
==============

The file(s) affected by this issue are:
	fs/ntfs3/fsntfs.c


Mitigation
==========

The Linux kernel CVE team recommends that you update to the latest
stable kernel version for this, and many other bugfixes.  Individual
changes are never tested alone, but rather are part of a larger kernel
release.  Cherry-picking individual commits is not recommended or
supported by the Linux kernel community at all.  If however, updating to
the latest release is impossible, the individual changes to resolve this
issue can be found at these commits:
	https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/6d3d3283e6b4fb3f3ee05dac30ee1461930b8103
	https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/329fc4d3f73d865b25f2ee4eafafb040ace37ad5
	https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/1c5cffe0d662fb2de7b63176c2582abb69b5f538
	https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/db2a3cc6a3481076da6344cc62a80a4e2525f36f