  This paper presents a systematic study on the security of modern file
systems, following a vulnerability-centric perspective. Specifically, we
collected 377 file system vulnerabilities committed to the CVE database in the
past 20 years. We characterize them from four dimensions that include why the
vulnerabilities appear, how the vulnerabilities can be exploited, what
consequences can arise, and how the vulnerabilities are fixed. This way, we
build a deep understanding of the attack surfaces faced by file systems, the
threats imposed by the attack surfaces, and the good and bad practices in
mitigating the attacks in file systems. We envision that our study will bring
insights towards the future development of file systems, the enhancement of
file system security, and the relevant vulnerability mitigating solutions.
