diff --git a/fs/cifs/cifssmb.c b/fs/cifs/cifssmb.c
index ea12fa6eacb6..a14d3f533301 100644
--- a/fs/cifs/cifssmb.c
+++ b/fs/cifs/cifssmb.c
@@ -2925,7 +2925,8 @@ createSymLinkRetry:
 				InformationLevel) - 4;
 	offset = param_offset + params;
 
-	data_offset = (char *) (&pSMB->hdr.Protocol) + offset;
+	/* SMB offsets are from the beginning of SMB which is 4 bytes in, after RFC1001 field */
+	data_offset = (char *)pSMB + offset + 4;
 	if (pSMB->hdr.Flags2 & SMBFLG2_UNICODE) {
 		name_len_target =
 		    cifsConvertToUTF16((__le16 *) data_offset, toName,