CVE-2026-97416
Low risk· EPSS 5%Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
Low risk5th percentile - higher than 5% of all known CVEs
Summary
In the Linux kernel, a vulnerability in the Btrfs filesystem causes a null-pointer dereference during balance operations when corrupted metadata leaves a chunk entry without a corresponding block group in the in-memory cache. The function btrfs_may_alloc_data_chunk() fails to properly check the result of the block group lookup, leading to a kernel crash when CONFIG_BTRFS_ASSERT is disabled.
Risk Assessment
An attacker with access to a corrupted Btrfs filesystem (e.g., by mounting a malicious image) can trigger a kernel crash (DoS) by initiating a balance operation. The vulnerability can be exploited locally to destabilize the system.
Recommendation
Apply a Linux kernel update containing the fix for CVE-2026-97416. If not possible, avoid running btrfs balance on untrusted or potentially corrupted filesystems.
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Original NVD description (English source)
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.
Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS