NTFS-3G 2026.9.18

NTFS-3G is the userspace (FUSE) driver that gives Linux safe read and write access to Windows NTFS drives, along with the ntfsprogs tools such as ntfsfix, ntfsresize, and ntfsclone. Release 2026.9.18 was published on September 23, 2026. We covered it in the news.

Security fixes

A filesystem driver parses on-disk structures, and a USB stick is untrusted input. This release fixes heap buffer overflows in:

• ntfs_external_attr_find()
• ntfs_ea_check_wsldev()
• ntfs_check_restart_area()
• ntfs_same_sid()
• ntfs_acl_owner()

It also guards against multiple creator-owner and creator-group ACEs during ACL inheritance.

Bug fixes

• Heap out-of-bounds read and write in ntfs_ie_add_vcn()
• Heap corruption in ntfs_mapping_pairs_decompress_i()
• A denial of service in ntfs_inode_attach_all_extents()
• ntfsresize left stale data in $MFTMirr when the first MFT extent moved
• ntfscat did not close an opened attribute

Installing

sudo apt install ntfs-3g      # Debian / Ubuntu
sudo dnf install ntfs-3g      # Fedora
sudo pacman -S ntfs-3g        # Arch
ntfs-3g --version

NTFS-3G or the kernel driver?

The in-kernel NTFS driver is faster and lighter on CPU, since it avoids the FUSE round trip, and Linux 7.1 replaced it with a new implementation. NTFS-3G remains the conservative option, and its tools are useful whichever driver you mount with. You can choose per mount:

sudo mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sdb1 /mnt/win
sudo mount -t ntfs3   /dev/sdb1 /mnt/win

If an NTFS drive mounts read-only, Windows Fast Startup has usually left it in a hibernated state; our dual boot guide covers turning it off. For fstab entries, see mounting drives and fstab.

Verify Your Download

Release tarballs and their checksums are published on the project’s GitHub releases page.