CVE-2025-68788 (GCVE-0-2025-68788)

Vulnerability from cvelistv5 – Published: 2026-01-13 15:29 – Updated: 2026-01-13 15:29
VLAI?
Title
fsnotify: do not generate ACCESS/MODIFY events on child for special files
Summary
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
Severity ?
No CVSS data available.
Assigner
References
Impacted products
Vendor Product Version
Linux Linux Affected: 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 , < 6a7d7d96eeeab7af2bd01afbb3d9878a11a13d91 (git)
Affected: 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 , < e0643d46759db8b84c0504a676043e5e341b6c81 (git)
Affected: 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 , < 82f7416bcbd951549e758d15fc1a96a5afc2e900 (git)
Affected: 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 , < 7a93edb23bcf07a3aaf8b598edfc2faa8fbcc0b6 (git)
Affected: 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 , < 635bc4def026a24e071436f4f356ea08c0eed6ff (git)
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    Linux Linux Unaffected: 6.1.160 , ≤ 6.1.* (semver)
Unaffected: 6.6.120 , ≤ 6.6.* (semver)
Unaffected: 6.12.64 , ≤ 6.12.* (semver)
Unaffected: 6.18.3 , ≤ 6.18.* (semver)
Unaffected: 6.19-rc2 , ≤ * (original_commit_for_fix)
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{
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          "programFiles": [
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          "value": "In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:\n\nfsnotify: do not generate ACCESS/MODIFY events on child for special files\n\ninotify/fanotify do not allow users with no read access to a file to\nsubscribe to events (e.g. IN_ACCESS/IN_MODIFY), but they do allow the\nsame user to subscribe for watching events on children when the user\nhas access to the parent directory (e.g. /dev).\n\nUsers with no read access to a file but with read access to its parent\ndirectory can still stat the file and see if it was accessed/modified\nvia atime/mtime change.\n\nThe same is not true for special files (e.g. /dev/null). Users will not\ngenerally observe atime/mtime changes when other users read/write to\nspecial files, only when someone sets atime/mtime via utimensat().\n\nAlign fsnotify events with this stat behavior and do not generate\nACCESS/MODIFY events to parent watchers on read/write of special files.\nThe events are still generated to parent watchers on utimensat(). This\ncloses some side-channels that could be possibly used for information\nexfiltration [1].\n\n[1] https://snee.la/pdf/pubs/file-notification-attacks.pdf"
        }
      ],
      "providerMetadata": {
        "dateUpdated": "2026-01-13T15:29:01.270Z",
        "orgId": "416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67",
        "shortName": "Linux"
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        },
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        },
        {
          "url": "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/635bc4def026a24e071436f4f356ea08c0eed6ff"
        }
      ],
      "title": "fsnotify: do not generate ACCESS/MODIFY events on child for special files",
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    "cveId": "CVE-2025-68788",
    "datePublished": "2026-01-13T15:29:01.270Z",
    "dateReserved": "2025-12-24T10:30:51.037Z",
    "dateUpdated": "2026-01-13T15:29:01.270Z",
    "state": "PUBLISHED"
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  }
}


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  • Confirmed: The vulnerability has been validated from an analyst's perspective.
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