CVE-2026-72193

Name of the Vulnerable Software and Affected Versions Linux kernel (affected versions not specified)

Description A flaw in the ntfs3 driver allows a crafted NTFS3 disk image to trigger an in-kernel infinite loop during mount time. This occurs because the check rstbl() function iterates through a free-entry singly-linked list headed by rt->first free without an upper bound on the iteration count. While guards exist for end-of-list, in-use markers, and out-of-bounds offsets, they do not prevent in-bounds cycles (such as a self-loop or A->B->A cycle) within the RESTART TABLE. This results in the mounting thread hanging and can trigger a soft-lockup watchdog on multi-CPU hosts. The issue is reachable via desktop USB auto-mount on distributions using udisks2 to route NTFS signatures to the ntfs3 driver, or via manual mount by users with CAP SYS ADMIN privileges.

Recommendations At the moment, there is no information about a newer version that contains a fix for this vulnerability.