Track vulnerabilities like this one. Sign up free to get alerted when software you use is affected.

CVE-2021-33285: NTFS-3G: Malicious NTFS Image Can Crash System

CVE-2021-33285 · published 5 years ago

Summary

A flaw in NTFS-3G allows a malicious NTFS image to crash the system. This can happen when writing to a compressed NTFS file. Update to NTFS-3G version 2021.8.22 or later to fix this issue.

What to do

Update tuxera ntfs-3g to version 2021.8.22 or later.

Affected software

Vendor	Product	Affected versions
tuxera	ntfs-3g	< 2021.8.22 `cpe:2.3:a:tuxera:ntfs-3g::::::::`
redhat	enterprise_linux	7.0 8.0 `cpe:2.3:o:redhat:enterprise_linux:7.0:::::::*`
fedoraproject	fedora	33 34 35 `cpe:2.3:o:fedoraproject:fedora:33:::::::*`
debian	debian_linux	9.0 10.0 11.0 `cpe:2.3:o:debian:debian_linux:9.0:::::::*`

Original advisory text

In NTFS-3G versions < 2021.8.22, when a specially crafted NTFS attribute is supplied to the function ntfs_get_attribute_value, a heap buffer overflow can occur allowing for memory disclosure or denial of service. The vulnerability is caused by an out-of-bound buffer access which can be triggered by mounting a crafted ntfs partition. The root cause is a missing consistency check after reading an MFT record : the "bytes_in_use" field should be less than the "bytes_allocated" field. When it is not, the parsing of the records proceeds into the wild.

References

https://github.com/tuxera/ntfs-3g/releases Vendor Advisory
http://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2021/08/30/1 Mailing List Third Party Advisory
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=988386 Issue Tracking Mailing List Third Party Advisory
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2001608 Issue Tracking Third Party Advisory
https://github.com/tuxera/ntfs-3g/security/advisories/GHSA-q759-8j5v-q5jp Third Party Advisory
https://lists.debian.org/debian-lts-announce/2021/11/msg00013.html Mailing List Third Party Advisory
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedorapro...
https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/package-announce%40lists.fedorapro...
https://security.gentoo.org/glsa/202301-01 Third Party Advisory
https://www.debian.org/security/2021/dsa-4971 Third Party Advisory
https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2021/08/30/1 Mailing List Third Party Advisory

Fix within

Internet-facing 14 days

Internal At next upgrade

Not known to be exploited
Needs hands-on effort to exploit
Gives an attacker full control

Severity

7.8 High

Exploitation

<1% chance of attack within 30 days

Type

CWE-787Out-of-bounds Write

CWE-20Improper Input Validation

Timeline

Published7 Sep 2021

Updated4 Nov 2026

First seen13 Mar 2026

Sources

CVE-2021-39261 · OSV

CVE-2021-33285 · NVD

Track software like this

Free during beta