Vulnerability · Published Dec 30, 2025 · Assigned by Linux

CVE-2023-54196fs/ntfs3: Fix NULL pointer dereference in 'ni_write_inode'

Unrated

In plain English

A security flaw in Linux from Linux. There are no confirmed reports of exploitation so far. The chance it is exploited in the next 30 days is estimated at 0.2% (higher than 10% of all known vulnerabilities). Fixed versions are available - upgrade the affected package.

Severity (CVSS )–Not rated
Exploit odds (30 days)0.2%top 90.2% of all CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo reportsnot in CISA KEV
Attack toolingNoneno public tooling known

Official 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()'.

Affected packages & fixed versions

EcosystemPackageFixed inAdvisory
Debian:12linux6.1.82-1DEBIAN-CVE-2023-54196
Debian:13linux6.3.7-1DEBIAN-CVE-2023-54196
Debian:14linux6.3.7-1DEBIAN-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux5.15.0-83.92UBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-allwinner-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-aws5.15.0-1044.49UBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-aws-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-aws-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-aws-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure5.15.0-1046.53UBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-azure-6.11no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure-fde5.15.0-1046.53.1UBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure-fde-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-azure-fde-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-gcp5.15.0-1041.49UBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-gcp-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-gcp-6.11no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-gcp-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-gcp-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-gke5.15.0-1041.46UBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-gkeop5.15.0-1027.32UBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-hwe-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-hwe-6.11no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-hwe-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-hwe-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-ibm5.15.0-1037.40UBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-intel-iot-realtimeno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-intel-iotg5.15.0-1039.45UBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-kvm5.15.0-1041.46UBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-lowlatency5.15.0-83.92UBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-lowlatency-hwe-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-lowlatency-hwe-6.11no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-lowlatency-hwe-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-lowlatency-hwe-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-nvidia5.15.0-1032.32UBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-nvidia-6.11no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-nvidia-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-nvidia-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-nvidia-tegra5.15.0-1017.17UBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-nvidia-tegra-igx5.15.0-1004.4UBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-oem-5.17no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-oem-6.0no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-oem-6.1no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-oem-6.11no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-oem-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-oem-6.8no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-oracle5.15.0-1042.48UBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-oracle-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-raspi5.15.0-1037.40UBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-raspi-realtimeno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-realtimeno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-realtimeno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-riscvno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-riscvno fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-riscv-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:24.04:LTSlinux-riscv-6.14no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-riscv-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-starfive-5.19no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-starfive-6.2no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-starfive-6.5no fix listedUBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196
Ubuntu:22.04:LTSlinux-xilinx-zynqmp5.15.0-1025.29UBUNTU-CVE-2023-54196

Affected products (as reported)

VendorProductVersions
Linux Linux 82cae269cfa953032fbb8980a7d554d60fb00b17 – before 6d3d3283e6b4fb3f3ee05dac30ee1461930b810382cae269cfa953032fbb8980a7d554d60fb00b17 – before 329fc4d3f73d865b25f2ee4eafafb040ace37ad582cae269cfa953032fbb8980a7d554d60fb00b17 – before 1c5cffe0d662fb2de7b63176c2582abb69b5f53882cae269cfa953032fbb8980a7d554d60fb00b17 – before db2a3cc6a3481076da6344cc62a80a4e2525f36f
Linux Linux 5.15

References