CVE-2026-53392: NFSv4/flexfiles: reject zero filehandle version count

Severity: high (CVSS 7.5 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.5% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2026-07-19 · updated 2026-10-19
Weakness: CWE-476

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: NFSv4/flexfiles: reject zero filehandle version count ff_layout_alloc_lseg() decodes the filehandle-version array count from the flexfiles layout body. The value is used as the count for kzalloc_objs(), and the current code only rejects NULL. A zero count yields ZERO_SIZE_PTR, which can be stored in dss_info->fh_versions even though later flexfiles paths assume that at least one filehandle version exists. Reject fh_count == 0 before the allocation, matching the existing zero version_count validation in the flexfiles GETDEVICEINFO parser. A QEMU/KASAN run with a malformed flexfiles layout hit: KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000010-0x0000000000000017] RIP: 0010:ff_layout_encode_ff_layoutupdate.isra.0+0x15f/0x750 ff_layout_encode_layoutreturn+0x683/0x970 nfs4_xdr_enc_layoutreturn+0x278/0x3a0 Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal exception The patched kernel rejects the malformed layout without KASAN/oops/panic, and a valid fh_count=1 regression still opens, reads, and unmounts cleanly.

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 4.0 before 5.10.261; from 5.11 before 5.15.212; from 5.16 before 6.1.178; from 6.2 before 6.6.145; from 6.7 before 6.12.96; from 6.13 before 6.18.38 — fixed in 5.10.261, 5.15.212, 6.1.178, 6.12.96, 6.18.38, 6.6.145

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 5.10.261, 5.15.212, 6.1.178, 6.12.96. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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