CVE-2026-53170 (GCVE-0-2026-53170)
Vulnerability from cvelistv5 – Published: 2026-06-25 08:38 – Updated: 2026-08-05 12:33
VLAI
EPSS
VEX
Title
accel/ethosu: reject DMA commands with uninitialized length
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.
Severity
8.8 (High)
Assigner
References
Impacted products
2 products
| Vendor | Product | Version | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Linux | Linux |
Affected:
5a5e9c0228e613f0ef2a58b9782d7c0ea8f1e58b , < fb25c76a820ca8a547aa478bfb503da0a11494ab
(git)
Affected: 5a5e9c0228e613f0ef2a58b9782d7c0ea8f1e58b , < d9d021218162b6c4fe0bdf42b2b340f1aae23a12 (git) |
|
| Linux | Linux |
Affected:
6.19
Unaffected: 0 , < 6.19 (semver) Unaffected: 7.0.13 , ≤ 7.0.* (semver) Unaffected: 7.1 , ≤ * (original_commit_for_fix) |
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"value": "AV:L - The vulnerable path is reached through local DRM accel device ioctls for Ethos-U command stream creation and job submission. There is no network, adjacent, or physical packet/device insertion path to this parser.\nAC:L - The attacker controls the userspace command stream, can omit NPU_SET_DMA0_LEN, set the DMA mode/stride/size values needed for wraparound, and can prime stale base registers with prior jobs. No race or condition outside the attacker\u2019s control is required.\nPR:L - The Ethos-U ioctls are registered without DRM_ROOT_ONLY, DRM_AUTH, or DRM_MASTER checks, so no kernel capability or administrator privilege is required. Exploitation requires a local low-privileged user able to open the accel device node.\nUI:N - Once the local attacker can issue the ioctls, the command stream validation bypass and hardware job execution occur without any victim action. No user needs to open a file, mount anything, or approve the job.\nS:C - The bug lets a userspace client drive an external DMA-capable NPU using stale DMA addresses outside the per-job GEM/DMA isolation the driver is supposed to enforce. This is a DMA boundary bypass, so impact can extend beyond the vulnerable parser\u2019s normal security authority.\nC:H - A malicious DMA command can use a stale source base address and copy data from another or freed DMA mapping into attacker-controlled memory. In the highest reasonable embedded deployment, stale physical DMA access can expose sensitive kernel or cross-process memory.\nI:H - A malicious DMA command can use a stale destination base address and write attacker-controlled data outside the authorized GEM buffer. This can corrupt other DMA buffers or reused kernel memory and is defensibly an arbitrary memory modification primitive.\nA:H - Invalid or malicious DMA can trigger NPU bus faults, scheduler resets, hangs, or broader kernel memory corruption. Repeated local submission can therefore cause high availability impact."
}
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Experimental. This forecast is provided for visualization only and may change without notice. Do not use it for operational decisions.
Forecast uses a logistic model when the trend is rising, or an exponential decay model when the trend is falling. Fitted via linearized least squares.
Sightings
| Author | Source | Type | Date | Other |
|---|
Nomenclature
- Seen: The vulnerability was mentioned, discussed, or observed by the user.
- Confirmed: The vulnerability has been validated from an analyst's perspective.
- Published Proof of Concept: A public proof of concept is available for this vulnerability.
- Exploited: The vulnerability was observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
- Patched: The vulnerability was observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.
- Not exploited: The vulnerability was not observed as exploited by the user who reported the sighting.
- Not confirmed: The user expressed doubt about the validity of the vulnerability.
- Not patched: The vulnerability was not observed as successfully patched by the user who reported the sighting.
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The MITRE ATT&CK techniques below are AI-generated suggestions, inferred from the description of the
vulnerability by the CIRCL/vulnerability-attack-technique-classification-roberta-base
model, served locally by ML-Gateway.
They have not been verified by an analyst and are provided for guidance only.
The approach is described in our paper Mapping CVEs to MITRE ATT&CK Techniques: A Curated Gold-Set Classifier and the Limits of LLM-Assisted Label Expansion.
Browse all ATT&CK techniques and the vulnerabilities related to each.
The approach is described in our paper Mapping CVEs to MITRE ATT&CK Techniques: A Curated Gold-Set Classifier and the Limits of LLM-Assisted Label Expansion.
Browse all ATT&CK techniques and the vulnerabilities related to each.
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