diff --git a/fs/ntfs3/index.c b/fs/ntfs3/index.c
index 1bf2a6593dec..15f3a711ea0a 100644
--- a/fs/ntfs3/index.c
+++ b/fs/ntfs3/index.c
@@ -478,6 +478,7 @@ static int indx_find_free(struct ntfs_index *indx, struct ntfs_inode *ni,
 	struct ATTR_LIST_ENTRY *le = NULL;
 	const struct INDEX_NAMES *in = &s_index_names[indx->type];
 	int err;
+	u64 bm_size;
 
 	b = ni_find_attr(ni, NULL, &le, ATTR_BITMAP, in->name, in->name_len,
 			 NULL, NULL);
@@ -488,6 +489,17 @@ static int indx_find_free(struct ntfs_index *indx, struct ntfs_inode *ni,
 	*bitmap = b;
 	*bit = MINUS_ONE_T;
 
+	bm_size = b->non_res ? le64_to_cpu(b->nres.valid_size) :
+			       le32_to_cpu(b->res.data_size);
+
+	/*
+	 * Allocated index blocks require $BITMAP to contain at least
+	 * one bit for usage tracking. A zero-length bitmap in this
+	 * case indicates a malformed on-disk structure and cannot be used.
+	 */
+	if (unlikely(bm_size == 0 && indx->alloc_run.count))
+		return -EINVAL;
+
 	if (!b->non_res) {
 		u32 nbits = 8 * le32_to_cpu(b->res.data_size);
 		size_t pos = find_next_zero_bit_le(resident_data(b), nbits, 0);