All vulnerabilities
CVE-2026-98318

Linux: smb: client: validate absolute native symlink targets before NT fixups

Linux LinuxOperating systems
CVSS
7.8High
ExploitationNo known exploitationNot in CISA KEV, which does not prove it is unexploitedCISA KEV
Exploit odds (EPSS)0.13%Chance of exploitation activity in the next 30 days, higher than 2% of CVEs. Scored 23 Oct 2026FIRST EPSS
Fixed in6913ff607c2bc8694193e1fcc40bf16d75f35f16Also 23c240d9509e15f72e4112fc95f0160ab32ec430, 6.16CVE List
Published6 Oct 2026Updated 19 Oct 2026CVE List

What fixes it

  • 6913ff607c2bc8694193e1fcc40bf16d75f35f16LinuxCVE List
  • 23c240d9509e15f72e4112fc95f0160ab32ec430LinuxCVE List
  • 6.16LinuxCVE List

A fixed version on one release line is not the upgrade target for every line. Check your exact version and any vendor backports.

Description

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

smb: client: validate absolute native symlink targets before NT fixups

With symlinkroot unset, an absolute target is copied without conversion to an NT drive path. Later code still assumes an NT prefix is present when modifying the target and calculating the print name length.

For "/ab", this causes two failures: sym[5] and path[5] are written past their allocations, and plen -= 2 * poff subtracts an assumed 8-byte prefix from a 6-byte UTF-16 target, wrapping u16 plen to 65534. That underflow causes another overflow: memcpy() copies 65534 bytes into a 24-byte buffer. A user with write access to a mounted share can trigger these bugs with default settings.

Validate the NT drive prefix, including an ASCII drive letter, before accessing fixed offsets or subtracting the prefix length.

Text from CVE List

Affected versions 8

  • Linuxaffected: 3363da82e02f1bddc54faa92ea430c6532e2cd2e before 6913ff607c2bc8694193e1fcc40bf16d75f35f16CVE List
  • Linuxaffected: 3363da82e02f1bddc54faa92ea430c6532e2cd2e before 23c240d9509e15f72e4112fc95f0160ab32ec430CVE List
  • Linuxaffected: b6ea7b6c6be65149ab6b8e37a9dd1671f76add1bCVE List
  • Linuxaffected: 6.15.6 before 6.16CVE List
  • Linuxaffected: 6.16CVE List
  • Linuxunaffected: all versions before 6.16CVE List
  • Linuxunaffected: 7.2.8 through 7.2.*CVE List
  • Linuxunaffected: 7.3CVE List

References 2