CVE-2025-37785: ext4: fix OOB read when checking dotdot dir

Description

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

ext4: fix OOB read when checking dotdot dir

Mounting a corrupted filesystem with directory which contains '.' dir
entry with rec_len == block size results in out-of-bounds read (later
on, when the corrupted directory is removed).

ext4_empty_dir() assumes every ext4 directory contains at least '.'
and '..' as directory entries in the first data block. It first loads
the '.' dir entry, performs sanity checks by calling ext4_check_dir_entry()
and then uses its rec_len member to compute the location of '..' dir
entry (in ext4_next_entry). It assumes the '..' dir entry fits into the
same data block.

If the rec_len of '.' is precisely one block (4KB), it slips through the
sanity checks (it is considered the last directory entry in the data
block) and leaves "struct ext4_dir_entry_2 *de" point exactly past the
memory slot allocated to the data block. The following call to
ext4_check_dir_entry() on new value of de then dereferences this pointer
which results in out-of-bounds mem access.

Fix this by extending __ext4_check_dir_entry() to check for '.' dir
entries that reach the end of data block. Make sure to ignore the phony
dir entries for checksum (by checking name_len for non-zero).

Note: This is reported by KASAN as use-after-free in case another
structure was recently freed from the slot past the bound, but it is
really an OOB read.

This issue was found by syzkaller tool.

Call Trace:
[ 38.594108] BUG...

Classification

CVE ID: CVE-2025-37785

Affected Products

Vendor: Linux

Product: Linux

Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS)

EPSS Score: 0.02% (probability of being exploited)

EPSS Percentile: 5.06% (scored less or equal to compared to others)

EPSS Date: 2025-04-18 (when was this score calculated)

References

Timeline

2025-04-18 08:40:17 UTC
CVE

ext4: fix OOB read when checking dotdot dir