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Fencer Vulns
high 8.8

CVE-2026-53170 json

accel/ethosu: reject DMA commands with uninitialized length

published 2026-06-25 4 mo ago modified 2026-08-05 3 mo ago also EUVD-2026-39261

cvss
8.8
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 7%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

accel/ethosu: reject DMA commands with uninitialized length

cmd_state_init() initializes the command state with memset(0xff), leaving dma->len at U64_MAX to signal missing setup. The only setter is NPU_SET_DMA0_LEN; if userspace omits this command and issues NPU_OP_DMA_START, dma->len remains U64_MAX.

In dma_length(), a positive stride added to U64_MAX wraps to a small value. With size0 == 1, check_mul_overflow() does not trigger and dma_length() returns 0 instead of U64_MAX. The caller's U64_MAX check then passes, region_size[] stays 0, and the bounds check in ethosu_job.c is bypassed, allowing hardware to execute DMA with stale physical addresses.

Fix by checking for U64_MAX at the start of dma_length() before any arithmetic, consistent with the sentinel value used throughout the driver to detect uninitialized fields.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 7.0.13, 7.1
  • linux Debian 14 7.0.13-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-53170

  • linux Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-31.31
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1012.12
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1011.11
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1006.7
  • linux-ibm Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1013.13
  • linux-azure Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1014.14
  • linux-raspi Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1019.19
  • linux-riscv Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-31.31.1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2026-53170

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2026-53170 updated

kernel: accel/ethosu: reject DMA commands with uninitialized length

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

0.18% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 7% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 8.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-908 Use of Uninitialized Resource
Technology feeds

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.