Security Advisory
CVE-2026-63996
7.8
HIGH
Vulnerability Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
ethtool: cmis: require exact CDB reply length
Malicious SFP module could respond with rpl_len longer than
what cmis_cdb_process_reply() expected, leading to OOB writes.
Malicious HW is a bit theoretical but some modules may just
be buggy and/or the reads may occasionally get corrupted,
so let's protect the kernel.
The existing check protects from short replies. We need to
protect from long ones, too. All callers that pass a non-zero
rpl_exp_len cast the reply payload to a fixed-layout struct
and read fields at fixed offsets, with no version negotiation
or short-reply handling:
- cmis_cdb_validate_password()
- cmis_cdb_module_features_get()
- cmis_fw_update_fw_mng_features_get()
so let's assume that responses longer than expected do not
have to be handled gracefully here. Add a warning message
to make the debug easier in case my understanding is wrong...
Note that page_data->length (argument of kmalloc) comes from
last arg to ethtool_cmis_page_init() which is rpl_exp_len.
Note2 that AIs also like to point out overflows in args->req.payload
itself (which is a fixed-size 120 B buffer, on the stack),
but callers should be reading structs defined by the standard,
so protecting from requests for more data than max seem like
defensive programming.
Published Date
July 19, 2026
Official Source
NIST NVD Advisory