CVE-2023-54248

Vulnerability

Overview

CVE-2023-54247 describes a missing return-value check in the Linux kernel's NTFS3 filesystem driver (fs/ntfs3). The function kmemdup is called without verifying that the returned pointer is non-NULL. If memory allocation fails, kmemdup returns NULL, and the subsequent use of that pointer will cause a NULL pointer dereference.

Exploitation and

Impact

An attacker with the ability to trigger the vulnerable code path (e.g., by mounting a crafted NTFS volume) could cause a denial of service (system crash) via the NULL pointer dereference. No special privileges beyond the ability to mount filesystems are likely required.

Mitigation

The fix, committed to the Linux kernel stable branches, adds an explicit check for the return value of kmemdup, ensuring that if a NULL is returned, the operation is safely aborted before any dereference occurs [1][2][3]. Users should apply the relevant kernel update.