CVE-2026-99164 (GCVE-0-2026-99164)

Vulnerability from cvelistv5 – Published: 2026-10-28 10:35 – Updated: 2026-10-28 10:35
VLAI
Title
spi: imx: fix slab corruption from undersized DMA bounce buffers
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.
Severity
No CVSS data available.
Assigner
Linux CNA under the mitre root
CNA scorecard D 53/100 over 7033 records in the last 180 days details
References
Impacted products
Vendor Product Version CPE status
Linux Linux Affected: faa8e404ad8e686cb98c51dc507fdcacfb8020ce , < 2777f6637da02da84c9c1ff92f413ce0f0995084 (git)
Affected: faa8e404ad8e686cb98c51dc507fdcacfb8020ce , < 59eb22641f0c526dd064390b11cff99ae87c2858 (git)
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Linux Linux Affected: 7.0
Unaffected: 0 , < 7.0 (semver)
Unaffected: 7.2.13 , ≤ 7.2.* (semver)
Unaffected: 7.3 , ≤ * (original_commit_for_fix)
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          "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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    "datePublished": "2026-10-28T10:35:16.694Z",
    "dateReserved": "2026-09-25T10:25:14.398Z",
    "dateUpdated": "2026-10-28T10:35:16.694Z",
    "state": "PUBLISHED"
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            "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."
          }
        ],
        "id": "CVE-2026-99164",
        "lastModified": "2026-10-28T11:17:36.760",
        "metrics": {},
        "published": "2026-10-28T11:17:36.760",
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        ],
        "sourceIdentifier": "416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67",
        "vulnStatus": "Received"
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    }
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}



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