Buffer overflow in Linux
CVE-2026-31716
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.
Vulnerability class: Buffer Overflow
Published · last modified .
CVSS v3 metric
CVSS v3 base score 7.8 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:R/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.
EPSS exploit prediction
EPSS: 0.002 (7.4th percentile), scored .
Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 7th percentile — 7.4% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.
EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.001 · newest: 0.002 · change: +0.001
Affected products
- Linux — versions 6.6.136, 6.12.84, 5.15.209
- Linux Kernel — versions 7.1
Weakness classification (CWE)
References
Frequently asked questions
- What is CVE-2026-31716?
- CVE-2026-31716 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux, classified under Out-of-bounds Write. CVSS score: 7.8/10. Published 2026-05-01.
- How severe is CVE-2026-31716?
- High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.8 out of 10.