CVE-2026-72209

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

ntfs: validate attribute values on lookup

ntfsattrfind() and ntfsexternalattr_find() check that generic

resident attribute values fit in their attribute records and that

fixed-size resident values are large enough. For variable-length resident

formats, however, the fixed part is not enough: embedded length fields

can still point callers past the resident value.

A crafted image can set a small resident $FILENAME valuelength while

leaving filenamelength large. Callers then trust filenamelength and

read past the resident value when converting or comparing the name. This

was reproduced with a crafted image under KASAN as a slab-out-of-bounds

read from the kmalloc-1k MFT record copy. The stack included

ntfslookup(), ntfsiget(), ntfsreadlockedinode(), ntfsattrnameget(),

ntfsucstonls(), and utf16sto_utf8s().

Add a shared attribute value validator and use it before a lookup path

can return an attribute, including the AT_UNUSED enumeration case where

callers inspect returned attributes directly. The helper validates

resident value bounds, minimum resident value sizes, variable-length

$FILE_NAME fields, and non-resident mapping-pairs metadata that was

previously checked separately in both lookup paths.

This also preserves the intended resident @val matching semantics in the

external attribute lookup path. The old duplicated validation block

overwrote the actual resident value length with the type-specific minimum

length before comparing @val, so variable-length resident values could

fail to match even when the bytes were identical. Keep the comparison on

the actual value length, and make ntfsattrlistentry_add() compare

resident attributes with lowest_vcn zero instead of reading the

non-resident union member after a successful resident match.

Reject non-resident $FILE_NAME records too: the format requires

$FILE_NAME to be resident and callers treat returned records as resident.