As said in [0]: The kernel allows processes to access the internal ".reiserfs_priv" directory at the top of a reiserfs filesystem which is used to store xattrs. Permissions are not enforced in that tree, so unprivileged users can view and potentially modify the xattrs on arbitrary files. Since the patch (see URL) has been submitted in 2010-04-08, every kernel version available's affected. [0] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=568041