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

Type: advisorySource: Official CVE List1 source record

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

Announced Source revision 1
Original source ↗

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

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Event
#39122 · Revision 1
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Publisher date
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