# CVE-2025-68788: fsnotify: do not generate ACCESS/MODIFY events on child for special files

> Local attackers can infer access to special files via fsnotify events, bypassing read restrictions and enabling information exfiltration.

- **Severity:** Not scored
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 13 Jan 2026
- **Updated:** 19 Oct 2026
- **Also known as:** AZL-74447, BELL-CVE-2025-68788, DEBIAN-CVE-2025-68788, GHSA-hgq3-chg9-c98j, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2204-CVE-2025-68788, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2404-CVE-2025-68788, UBUNTU-CVE-2025-68788

## What is CVE-2025-68788?

CVE-2025-68788 is a vulnerability in Linux, published on 13 Jan 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

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

fsnotify: do not generate ACCESS/MODIFY events on child for special files

inotify/fanotify do not allow users with no read access to a file to
subscribe to events (e.g. IN_ACCESS/IN_MODIFY), but they do allow the
same user to subscribe for watching events on children when the user
has access to the parent directory (e.g. /dev).

Users with no read access to a file but with read access to its parent
directory can still stat the file and see if it was accessed/modified
via atime/mtime change.

The same is not true for special files (e.g. /dev/null). Users will not
generally observe atime/mtime changes when other users read/write to
special files, only when someone sets atime/mtime via utimensat().

Align fsnotify events with this stat behavior and do not generate
ACCESS/MODIFY events to parent watchers on read/write of special files.
The events are still generated to parent watchers on utimensat(). This
closes some side-channels that could be possibly used for information
exfiltration [1].

[1] https://snee.la/pdf/pubs/file-notification-attacks.pdf

Weakness: CWE-200 (Exposure of Sensitive Information to an Unauthorized Actor)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2025-68788?


## How do I fix CVE-2025-68788?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2025-68788 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-68788 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2025-68788 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2025-68788 is a vulnerability in Linux, published on 13 Jan 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2025-68788 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Linux. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-68788/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-68788/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2025-68788
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-68788
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2025-68788

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2025-68788/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.