CVE-2026-89786

About vulnerability

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

ext4: fix out-of-bounds read in ext4_read_inline_dir()

ext4_read_inline_dir() can read a dirent header past the end of its inline buffer, triggering a slab-out-of-bounds read during getdents64():

BUG: KASAN: slab-out-of-bounds in __ext4_check_dir_entry Read of size 2 at addr ffff88800f3dd23c by task exploit/148 … __ext4_check_dir_entry ext4_read_inline_dir iterate_dir

The dirent payload lives in a buffer of exactly inline_size bytes:

dir_buf = kmalloc(inline_size, GFP_NOFS);

but iteration runs in a position space extra_offset bytes larger (extra_size = extra_offset + inline_size) so the synthetic “.” and “..” land at their block-dir offsets. A dirent is formed at “dir_buf + pos - extra_offset”, yet the ext4_check_dir_entry() length argument uses the larger extra_size. A position whose dirent header would extend past extra_size is therefore accepted, and the rescan loop’s rec_len probe and ext4_check_dir_entry() dereference de->rec_len before the entry is rejected.

Reject a position whose minimum-size dirent header would not fit within extra_size before forming de, in both the rescan and main loops, and pass inline_size rather than extra_size to ext4_check_dir_entry() so the length check matches the physical buffer.

Affected product:

AlmaLinux 9.2 ESU , Amazon Linux 2 ELS , CentOS 7 ELS , CentOS 8.4 ELS , CentOS 8.5 ELS , CentOS Stream 8 ELS , CloudLinux 7 ELS , Debian 10 ELS , Debian 11 ELS , Oracle Linux 7 ELS , RHEL 7 ELS , TuxCare 9.6 ESU , TuxCare 9.8 ESU , Ubuntu 16.04 ELS , Ubuntu 18.04 ELS , Ubuntu 20.04 ELS

Affected packages:

linux @ 5.10.259 (+17 more)

Live-patch status from KernelCare for each operating system.