CVE-2026-80656 hfsplus: Add a sanity check for btree node size
A missing sanity check in the Linux kernel HFS+ driver allows a corrupted image to trigger an uninitialized value bug, causing a system crash.
- 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
What is CVE-2026-80656?
CVE-2026-80656 is a high-severity memory corruption vulnerability in Linux, published on 28 Aug 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:
hfsplus: Add a sanity check for btree node size
Syzbot reported an uninit-value bug in [1] with a corrupted HFS+ image, during the file system mounting process, specifically while loading the catalog, a corrupted node_size value of 1 caused the rec_off argument passed to hfs_bnode_read_u16() (within hfs_bnode_find()) to be excessively large. Consequently, the function failed to return a valid value to initialize the off variable, triggering the bug [1].
Every node starts from BTree node descriptor: struct hfs_bnode_desc. So, the size of node cannot be lesser than that. However, technical specification declares that: "The node size (which is expressed in bytes) must be power of two, from 512 through 32,768, inclusive." Add a check for btree node size base on technical specification.
[1] BUG: KMSAN: uninit-value in hfsplus_bnode_find+0x141c/0x1600 fs/hfsplus/bnode.c:584 hfsplus_bnode_find+0x141c/0x1600 fs/hfsplus/bnode.c:584 hfsplus_btree_open+0x169a/0x1e40 fs/hfsplus/btree.c:382 hfsplus_fill_super+0x111f/0x2770 fs/hfsplus/super.c:553 get_tree_bdev_flags+0x6e6/0x920 fs/super.c:1694 get_tree_bdev+0x38/0x50 fs/super.c:1717 hfsplus_get_tree+0x35/0x40 fs/hfsplus/super.c:709 vfs_get_tree+0xb3/0x5d0 fs/super.c:1754 fc_mount fs/namespace.c:1193 [inline]
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-80656?
How do I fix CVE-2026-80656?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Upgrade to the fixed version. Memory-safe languages, compiler hardening and fuzzing prevent most new cases. More about Memory corruption.
Is CVE-2026-80656 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-80656 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2026-80656, GHSA-prqf-3j7q-v843, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-80656.