vulnerability
Red Hat: CVE-2025-39840: kernel: audit: fix out-of-bounds read in audit_compare_dname_path() (Multiple Advisories)
| Severity | CVSS | Published | Added | Modified |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 | (AV:L/AC:M/Au:S/C:C/I:C/A:C) | Sep 19, 2025 | Jan 15, 2026 | Jan 16, 2026 |
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
audit: fix out-of-bounds read in audit_compare_dname_path()
When a watch on dir=/ is combined with an fsnotify event for a
single-character name directly under / (e.g., creating /a), an
out-of-bounds read can occur in audit_compare_dname_path().
The helper parent_len() returns 1 for "/". In audit_compare_dname_path(),
when parentlen equals the full path length (1), the code sets p = path + 1
and pathlen = 1 - 1 = 0. The subsequent loop then dereferences
p[pathlen - 1] (i.e., p[-1]), causing an out-of-bounds read.
Fix this by adding a pathlen > 0 check to the while loop condition
to prevent the out-of-bounds access.
[PM: subject tweak, sign-off email fixes]
Solutions
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