Disk Error Handling Issue in Linux Kernel XFS Component

CVE-2025-39835

What is CVE-2025-39835?

A vulnerability exists in the XFS filesystem of the Linux kernel where disk errors can propagate as false ENODATA (aka ENOATTR) errors. This can mislead applications into thinking that an attribute is not found, while it may actually be a disk I/O issue. Furthermore, this may lead to potential crashes due to null pointer dereferencing in the xfs_attr_leaf_get() function. A patch has been introduced to address this specific bug in the xattr code, ensuring that unique disk-related errors are handled more effectively and do not mistakenly escalate into higher-level XFS functions.

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