fsnotify: do not generate ACCESS/MODIFY events on child for special files
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
CVE-2025-68788
Primary source · Revision 1
Imported from structured advisory data. Source references identify upstream records or fields; verify affected versions and your deployed configuration.
Security context
Source reference: cve:CVE-2025-68788
Linux
Source reference: /containers/cna/affected/0/product
- Affected versions
- Not stated in this record
- Fixed versions
- Not stated in this record
- Prerequisites
- Not stated in this record
Linux
Source reference: /containers/cna/affected/1/product
- Affected versions
- Not stated in this record
- Fixed versions
- Not stated in this record
- Prerequisites
- Not stated in this record
Structured affected-version data
Original package identities and version rules from this source.
[
{
"repo": "https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git",
"vendor": "Linux",
"product": "Linux",
"versions": [
{
"status": "affected",
"version": "72acc854427948efed7a83da27f7dc3239ac9afc",
"lessThan": "df2711544b050aba703e6da418c53c7dc5d443ca",
"versionType": "git"
},
{
"status": "affected",
"version": "72acc854427948efed7a83da27f7dc3239ac9afc",
"lessThan": "859bdf438f01d9aa7f84b09c1202d548c7cad9e8",
"versionType": "git"
},
{
"status": "affected",
"version": "72acc854427948efed7a83da27f7dc3239ac9afc",
"lessThan": "6a7d7d96eeeab7af2bd01afbb3d9878a11a13d91",
"versionType": "git"
},
{
"status": "affected",
"version": "72acc854427948efed7a83da27f7dc3239ac9afc",
"lessThan": "e0643d46759db8b84c0504a676043e5e341b6c81",
"versionType": "git"
},
{
"status": "affected",
"version": "72acc854427948efed7a83da27f7dc3239ac9afc",
"lessThan": "82f7416bcbd951549e758d15fc1a96a5afc2e900",
"versionType": "git"
},
{
"status": "affected",
"version": "72acc854427948efed7a83da27f7dc3239ac9afc",
"lessThan": "7a93edb23bcf07a3aaf8b598edfc2faa8fbcc0b6",
"versionType": "git"
},
{
"status": "affected",
"version": "72acc854427948efed7a83da27f7dc3239ac9afc",
"lessThan": "635bc4def026a24e071436f4f356ea08c0eed6ff",
"versionType": "git"
}
],
"programFiles": [
"fs/notify/fsnotify.c"
],
"defaultStatus": "unaffected"
},
{
"repo": "https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git",
"vendor": "Linux",
"product": "Linux",
"versions": [
{
"status": "affected",
"version": "2.6.36"
},
{
"status": "unaffected",
"version": "0",
"lessThan": "2.6.36",
"versionType": "semver"
},
{
"status": "unaffected",
"version": "5.10.248",
"versionType": "semver",
"lessThanOrEqual": "5.10.*"
},
{
"status": "unaffected",
"version": "5.15.198",
"versionType": "semver",
"lessThanOrEqual": "5.15.*"
},
{
"status": "unaffected",
"version": "6.1.160",
"versionType": "semver",
"lessThanOrEqual": "6.1.*"
},
{
"status": "unaffected",
"version": "6.6.120",
"versionType": "semver",
"lessThanOrEqual": "6.6.*"
},
{
"status": "unaffected",
"version": "6.12.64",
"versionType": "semver",
"lessThanOrEqual": "6.12.*"
},
{
"status": "unaffected",
"version": "6.18.3",
"versionType": "semver",
"lessThanOrEqual": "6.18.*"
},
{
"status": "unaffected",
"version": "6.19",
"versionType": "original_commit_for_fix",
"lessThanOrEqual": "*"
}
],
"programFiles": [
"fs/notify/fsnotify.c"
],
"defaultStatus": "affected"
}
]- Related CVEs
- CVE-2025-68788
Source reference:
/cveMetadata/cveId
Publisher severity
No explicit severity was provided.
- Event
- #39122 · Revision 1
- Added to Heist Feed
- Publisher date