CVE-2026-99164 (GCVE-0-2026-99164)
Vulnerability from cvelistv5
Published
2026-10-28 10:35
Modified
2026-10-28 10:35
Severity ?
VLAI Severity ?
EPSS score ?
Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
spi: imx: fix slab corruption from undersized DMA bounce buffers
Since commit faa8e404ad8e ("spi: imx: support dynamic burst length for
ECSPI DMA mode"), the driver allocates its private DMA TX/RX buffers
with kzalloc(dma_len), where dma_len is only rounded up to 4 bytes, but
maps, syncs and unmaps them with DMA_CACHE_ALIGNED_LEN(dma_len), i.e.
rounded up to the cache line size. As a result, the DMA API operates on
memory beyond the end of the allocation.
This was observed on a custom i.MX8MP platform with an mcp251xfd CAN
controller under heavy RPMSG load, as a series of refcount_t warnings
triggered from rpmsg_recv_done() in virtio_rpmsg_bus:
refcount_t: addition on 0; use-after-free.
refcount_t: underflow; use-after-free.
refcount_t: saturated; leaking memory.
Leading finally to an "Unable to handle kernel paging request" oops.
Reproducing this problem took between 30 minutes and roughly 30 hours
under the same workload.
Hardware watchpoints on the refcount of a struct rpmsg_endpoint showed
it was overwritten from 2 to 1 by __pi_memcpy_generic() in the
irq/155-spi2.0 thread. Additionally it was found that a "normal"
rpmsg_recv_done() took 11µs +/-2µs from its kref_get to kref_put. In
the error case the same sequence took about 215µs +/-10µs. Based on
this, an LLM was used to identify the size mismatch fixed here.
Allocate the buffers with DMA_CACHE_ALIGNED_LEN(dma_len) so they cover
the full mapped length, and use the same length for
dma_sync_single_for_cpu() to stay consistent with map and unmap.
With this patch applied, the same workload ran for more than 200 hours
without the problem reproducing.
References
Impacted products
{
"containers": {
"cna": {
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{
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"product": "Linux",
"programFiles": [
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"versions": [
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"versions": [
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"version": "7.0"
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"version": "7.2.13",
"versionType": "semver"
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{
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"status": "unaffected",
"version": "7.3",
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"vulnerable": true
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{
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"negate": false,
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"descriptions": [
{
"lang": "en",
"value": "In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:\n\nspi: imx: fix slab corruption from undersized DMA bounce buffers\n\nSince commit faa8e404ad8e (\"spi: imx: support dynamic burst length for\nECSPI DMA mode\"), the driver allocates its private DMA TX/RX buffers\nwith kzalloc(dma_len), where dma_len is only rounded up to 4 bytes, but\nmaps, syncs and unmaps them with DMA_CACHE_ALIGNED_LEN(dma_len), i.e.\nrounded up to the cache line size. As a result, the DMA API operates on\nmemory beyond the end of the allocation.\n\nThis was observed on a custom i.MX8MP platform with an mcp251xfd CAN\ncontroller under heavy RPMSG load, as a series of refcount_t warnings\ntriggered from rpmsg_recv_done() in virtio_rpmsg_bus:\n\n refcount_t: addition on 0; use-after-free.\n refcount_t: underflow; use-after-free.\n refcount_t: saturated; leaking memory.\n\nLeading finally to an \"Unable to handle kernel paging request\" oops.\nReproducing this problem took between 30 minutes and roughly 30 hours\nunder the same workload.\n\nHardware watchpoints on the refcount of a struct rpmsg_endpoint showed\nit was overwritten from 2 to 1 by __pi_memcpy_generic() in the\nirq/155-spi2.0 thread. Additionally it was found that a \"normal\"\nrpmsg_recv_done() took 11\u00b5s +/-2\u00b5s from its kref_get to kref_put. In\nthe error case the same sequence took about 215\u00b5s +/-10\u00b5s. Based on\nthis, an LLM was used to identify the size mismatch fixed here.\n\nAllocate the buffers with DMA_CACHE_ALIGNED_LEN(dma_len) so they cover\nthe full mapped length, and use the same length for\ndma_sync_single_for_cpu() to stay consistent with map and unmap.\n\nWith this patch applied, the same workload ran for more than 200 hours\nwithout the problem reproducing."
}
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"providerMetadata": {
"dateUpdated": "2026-10-28T10:35:16.694Z",
"orgId": "416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67",
"shortName": "Linux"
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"references": [
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"url": "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2777f6637da02da84c9c1ff92f413ce0f0995084"
},
{
"url": "https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/59eb22641f0c526dd064390b11cff99ae87c2858"
}
],
"title": "spi: imx: fix slab corruption from undersized DMA bounce buffers",
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"cveId": "CVE-2026-99164",
"datePublished": "2026-10-28T10:35:16.694Z",
"dateReserved": "2026-09-25T10:25:14.398Z",
"dateUpdated": "2026-10-28T10:35:16.694Z",
"state": "PUBLISHED"
},
"dataType": "CVE_RECORD",
"dataVersion": "5.2"
}
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Sightings
| Author | Source | Type | Date |
|---|
Nomenclature
- Seen: The vulnerability was mentioned, discussed, or seen somewhere by the user.
- Confirmed: The vulnerability is confirmed from an analyst perspective.
- Published Proof of Concept: A public proof of concept is available for this vulnerability.
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- Patched: This vulnerability was successfully patched by the user reporting the sighting.
- Not exploited: This vulnerability was not exploited or seen by the user reporting the sighting.
- Not confirmed: The user expresses doubt about the veracity of the vulnerability.
- Not patched: This vulnerability was not successfully patched by the user reporting the sighting.
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