# CVE-2026-98318: smb: client: validate absolute native symlink targets before NT fixups

CVE-2026-98318 is fixed in linux on 1 platform by DEBIAN-CVE-2026-98318 (version 7.2.8-1), released October 6, 2026. It is not reported as exploited. Patch Radar priority: High.

- Web page: https://patchblox.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-98318
- Priority: High
- CVSS: 7.8 (high)
- EPSS: 0.0012
- CISA KEV: not listed
- Exploited (vendor report): no
- Publicly disclosed: no
- Published: Oct 6, 2026
- Vendor advisory: https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-2026-98318

## Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:  smb: client: validate absolute native symlink targets before NT fixups  With symlinkroot unset, an absolute target is copied without conversion to an NT drive path. Later code still assumes an NT prefix is present when modifying the target and calculating the print name length.  For "/ab", this causes two failures: sym[5] and path[5] are written past their allocations, and plen -= 2 * poff subtracts an assumed 8-byte prefix from a 6-byte UTF-16 target, wrapping u16 plen to 65534. That underflow causes another overflow: memcpy() copies 65534 bytes into a 24-byte buffer. A user with write access to a mounted share can trigger these bugs with default settings.  Validate the NT drive prefix, including an ASCII drive letter, before accessing fixed offsets or subtracting the prefix length.

## Where it's fixed

| Platform | Product | Fixed in | Fix | Released |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Linux | linux Debian 14 | 7.2.8-1 | [DEBIAN-CVE-2026-98318](https://patchblox.com/security/data/fix/linux/debian-cve-2026-98318.md) | Oct 6, 2026 |

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Data as of 2026-11-09T07:25:28Z UTC. Source: Patchblox Patch Radar (https://patchblox.com/security/patch-radar). Patchblox finds out-of-date software on Windows, macOS and Linux and updates it through release rings: https://patchblox.com/demo

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