Vulnerability in Linux

[ Description ]Official description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: btrfs: balance: fix potential bg lookup failure in btrfs_may_alloc_data_chunk() [BUG] Running btrfs balance can trigger a null-ptr-deref before relocating a data chunk when metadata corruption leaves a chunk in the chunk tree without a corresponding block group in the in-memory cache: KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000088-0x000000000000008f] RIP: 0010:btrfs_may_alloc_data_chunk+0x40/0x1c0 fs/btrfs/volumes.c:3601 Call Trace: __btrfs_balance fs/btrfs/volumes.c:4217 [inline] btrfs_balance+0x2516/0x42b0 fs/btrfs/volumes.c:4604 btrfs_ioctl_balance fs/btrfs/ioctl.c:3577 [inline] btrfs_ioctl+0x25cf/0x5b90 fs/btrfs/ioctl.c:5313 ... [CAUSE] __btrfs_balance() iterates the on-disk chunk tree and passes the chunk logical bytenr to btrfs_may_alloc_data_chunk() before relocating a data chunk. That helper then queries the in-memory block group cache: cache = btrfs_lookup_block_group(fs_info, chunk_offset); chunk_type = cache->flags; /* cache may be NULL */ A corrupt image can contain a chunk item whose matching block group item is missing, so no block group is ever inserted into the cache. In that case btrfs_lookup_block_group() returns NULL. The code only guards this with ASSERT(cache), which becomes a no-op when CONFIG_BTRFS_ASSERT is disabled. The subsequent dereference of cache->flags therefore crashes the kernel. [FIX] Add a NULL check after btrfs_lookup_block_group() in btrfs_may_alloc_data_chunk() and print and error message for clarity.

[ Fixes ]Fixes and patches

No fix or interim patch is linked from our sources yet. Check the vendor references below and limit exposure of affected systems until a fix is available.

[ Advisories ]Government CERT advisories

• CERT-FR9 Oct 2026CERTFR-2026-AVI-1289

  Multiple vulnerabilities in the Debian LTS Linux kernel Translated from French

  Multiple vulnerabilities have been discovered in the Debian LTS Linux kernel. Some of them allow an attacker to cause privilege escalation, a breach of data confidentiality and denial of service.

  CVE-2025-38237CVE-2025-39833CVE-2025-39925+1311 more CVEs
• CERT-FR2 Oct 2026CERTFR-2026-AVI-1253

  Multiple vulnerabilities in the Debian Linux kernel Translated from French

  Multiple vulnerabilities have been discovered in the Debian Linux kernel. Some of them allow an attacker to cause privilege escalation, a breach of data confidentiality and denial of service.

  CVE-2025-38237CVE-2025-39833CVE-2025-39925+1310 more CVEs
• BSI CERT-Bund24 Sep 2026WID-SEC-2026-3579

  Linux Kernel: Multiple vulnerabilities Translated from German

  CVE-2026-97615CVE-2026-97978CVE-2026-98127+590 more CVEs

[ References ]References

• git.kernel.org/stable/c/18d32b0013efba19f7ad3e5b08d7aee813d604a6
• git.kernel.org/stable/c/322f891b4d4fe64acb3351a0ffa62a7fa5ba7256
• git.kernel.org/stable/c/59f75e0c8724d4adebc08c7dd3ff2358b80c21f7
• git.kernel.org/stable/c/81a664ed8b1a44c76b204c4bd0d751317a02c5cd
• git.kernel.org/stable/c/9740dd0c17a4be8cc47a06c5ca5293471a7e286e
• git.kernel.org/stable/c/9f37a6d6ae9e998232e2ba091ab4999cdf967e1b
• git.kernel.org/stable/c/e479236a8f4d85c4fb6b3f7c2556c21f583e2bf2