CVEvulnerability
CVE-2026-97906
- Status
- Received
- Published
- 2026-09-25
- Last modified
- 2026-10-21
- Assigner
- 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
bootconfig: Fix integer overflow in initrd size check
Sashiko reported that in get_boot_config_from_initrd(), a crafted initrd
with a huge bootconfig size (such as 0xFFFFFFFF) can cause the pointer
arithmetic:
data = ((void *)hdr) - size;
to wrap around on 32-bit systems (or when pointer subtraction overflows).
Because data wraps around, the subsequent bounds check:
if ((unsigned long)data < initrd_start)
evaluates to false, bypassing the check. The kernel then calls
xbc_calc_checksum(data, size), which attempts to read 4GB of memory,
hitting unmapped pages and triggering a fatal kernel page fault during
early boot. Furthermore, on 64-bit systems with an initrd > 4.29 GB, an
unbounded 32-bit size can similarly bypass the initrd_start check.
Fix this by:
1. Ensuring the initrd is at least large enough to contain the bootconfig
footer and verifying hdr is within the initrd bounds.
2. Checking that size does not exceed XBC_DATA_MAX and does not exceed
the available space between initrd_start and hdr before performing
pointer subtraction.
References
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/4d45bc0f8cdf606d5409b5f64a8a6609f6520c03 git.kernel.org
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/7812d6dab0698001e50e8c2f901e17da3eb6f429 git.kernel.org
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/8d4343a411eaa182d323ab5b149496416015f27d git.kernel.org
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/97be05f33f79342ea65d9b99c9ad07a93b8eef5a git.kernel.org
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/bff9a1579e2c9b2a59fdf3793becc9d7bf5ff1a6 git.kernel.org