CVE-2023-53473

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

ext4: improve error handling from ext4_dirhash()

The ext4_dirhash() will almost never fail, especially when the hash tree feature was first introduced. However, with the addition of support of encrypted, casefolded file names, that function can most certainly fail today.

So make sure the callers of ext4_dirhash() properly check for failures, and reflect the errors back up to their callers.

This vulnerability is rated as Moderate impact because exploitation requires local access and relies on specific ext4 filesystem options, namely casefolding and encryption, limiting the blast radius. Under standard Red Hat Enterprise Linux deployments, these features are not configured by default on root or typical storage volumes. As a result, default installations are not exposed to this condition, and any potential impact is restricted to local denial of service.

The CVSS score(s) listed for this vulnerability do not reflect the associated product's status, and are included for informational purposes to better understand the severity of this vulnerability.