From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: AL-KERNEL To: kernel-cve@kernelcve.org Subject: [CVE-2026-53206][MODERATE REGULAR] accel/ivpu: Add bounds check for firmware runtime memory Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2026 09:20:33 -0400 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-AL-KERNEL-CVE: CVE-2026-53206 X-AL-KERNEL-Priority: MODERATE REGULAR X-AL-KERNEL-Severity: MODERATE REGULAR X-AL-KERNEL-Base-Severity: MODERATE X-AL-KERNEL-KPANIC: NO X-AL-KERNEL-ActionableScore: 3 X-AL-KERNEL-ActionableScore-Lower: 0 X-AL-KERNEL-Commit: f8ab60ae9309e76d9a09c601c10cc222e25b3d5b List-Id: CVE: CVE-2026-53206 Priority: MODERATE REGULAR AL-KERNEL base severity: MODERATE KPANIC flag: NO Patch: accel/ivpu: Add bounds check for firmware runtime memory Commit: f8ab60ae9309e76d9a09c601c10cc222e25b3d5b Upstream patch: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=f8ab60ae9309e76d9a09c601c10cc222e25b3d5b Original CVE announcement: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-53206 Analysis date: Mon, 29 Jun 2026 09:20:33 -0400 ActionableScore: 3 ActionableScore lower bound: 0 Actionable bucket: Borderline, manual review recommended Manual review required: YES Summary: Malformed ivpu firmware metadata can specify unaligned or undersized runtime memory, causing firmware allocation or image transfer failures and in a conservative worst case constrained device runtime memory corruption during privileged firmware load. ====================================================================== ABOUT THIS REPORT ====================================================================== The original Linux kernel CVE announcement for CVE-2026-53206 is available here: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-53206 The original announcement does not normally provide a security severity estimate, CVSS assessment, or enough information to determine whether the reported kernel bug represents a practically relevant security issue. This report was generated by AL-KERNEL, an AI-assisted Linux kernel vulnerability analysis system developed by Alexander Larkin. It combines an autonomous classifier with LLM-assisted technical analysis and a separate ActionableScore mechanism. The purpose of this report is to prioritize Linux kernel CVEs before manual review, identify cases that require prompt investigation, and support automatic closure of issues that are unlikely to have meaningful security impact. Published priority for this report: MODERATE REGULAR Manual review required: YES A detailed explanation of the methodology and priority rules is included at the end of this message. ====================================================================== AL-KERNEL CLASSIFICATION RESULT ====================================================================== CVE-2026-53206 MODERATE CHECK Maybe valid. Check manually. Hints by AL-KERNEL: The best (paranoid) CVSS is 'AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:H';*CWE-20;CWE-131;*CWE-787;Other CVSS 'AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L';BEST CVSS score: '5.6';DESCR 'An ivpu firmware image can specify runtime memory values that are not page aligned or too small for the firmware image. If such a malformed image is accepted, later allocation or image transfer paths can fail and may corrupt device runtime memory or crash the driver during firmware load. For the CVSS the PR:H is used because reliable triggering normally requires administrator control over the firmware image or firmware loading path on the host. The issue is local and not network reachable. Impact is primarily denial of service of the accelerator driver or device, with limited confidentiality or integrity impact only as a conservative worst case for malformed firmware metadata handling.';YES REQUIRES MANUAL CHECK; ,and ActionableScore result is Borderline, manual review recommended (with actual score 2) SKIP CVE-2026-53206 SKIP The Fixes patch not applied yet, so unlikely that actual: 2007e210b6a188efc35160ff9f2780581fe56941 YES NO NO unknown MAYBE OOB SIMPLEFIX IMPROVEONLY LOWERED_FROM_HIGH_BASED_ON_GUESSCVSS DECREASED_TO_MODERATEREG_BASED_ON_ACTIONABLESCORELESSTHAN5 - - checked ====================================================================== ACTIONABLESCORE ANALYSIS ====================================================================== ActionableScore=3 ActionableScoreLower=0 ## 1. ActionableScore * Conservative score: 0 * Paranoid score: 3 * Final recommended bucket: **Borderline, manual review recommended**:: ## 2. Signal breakdown Conservative signals: * Privileged kernel/device-management path: +1. The bug is in accel/ivpu firmware parsing and affects runtime memory metadata used during firmware load. * Availability impact realistic: +1. A malformed firmware image can cause allocation or image transfer failure and may prevent the device or driver from initializing correctly. * Requires admin/root in typical deployments: -2. Supplying or replacing device firmware normally requires host administrative control. Conservative total: 0 Paranoid signals: * Firmware-mediated external influence: +1. The malformed input is firmware image metadata rather than ordinary local syscall data. * Constrained kernel or device buffer overwrite candidate: +1. runtime_size smaller than image_size may allow an oversized firmware image transfer into an undersized runtime memory region, but target and payload control appear constrained. * Privileged kernel/device-management memory corruption path: +1. The affected path is trusted driver firmware setup for accelerator hardware. * Confidentiality impact plausible: +1. Only as a conservative worst case if malformed firmware runtime metadata causes unintended device or driver memory exposure. * Integrity impact plausible: +1. More plausible than confidentiality because the bug concerns transferring an image into a runtime memory region with insufficient size validation. * Availability impact realistic: +1. Firmware load failure or driver/device malfunction is realistic. * Requires admin/root in typical deployments: -2. Firmware control is normally privileged. * Corruption primitive highly constrained or metadata-only: -1. The patch does not show attacker-controlled host memory target selection, reclaim control, UAF, arbitrary write, or page-cache corruption. Paranoid total: 3 ## 3. Reachability analysis The likely trigger is a malformed ivpu firmware image with unaligned runtime_addr, unaligned runtime_size, or runtime_size smaller than image_size. In normal deployments, firmware files and firmware loading paths are controlled by root or system update mechanisms, so this is PR:H in practical CVSS terms. Namespaces and containers usually do not reduce the requirement unless a container or delegated service can influence host firmware files or trigger firmware loading with attacker-controlled content. The path is not network reachable. Exposure depends on systems with Intel ivpu hardware and the corresponding driver enabled. ## 4. Severity interpretation This behaves mostly like a low to borderline Moderate privileged driver firmware-validation issue. The realistic impact is device or driver DoS during firmware load. The paranoid concern is constrained corruption of device/runtime memory during image transfer, but the patch does not support a strong host memory corruption primitive, UAF, arbitrary write, or plausible local privilege escalation path. This should not be treated as an Important-class issue based only on the provided patch. It is still worth manual review if the environment allows non-admin firmware influence or if further code inspection shows that the oversized transfer can cross into host-controlled DMA or kernel memory. ## 5. One-sentence report phrase Malformed ivpu firmware metadata can specify unaligned or undersized runtime memory, causing firmware allocation or image transfer failures and in a conservative worst case constrained device runtime memory corruption during privileged firmware load. ## 6. Manual review recommendation MANUAL CHECK RECOMMENDED Reason: the default risk is low because firmware control is normally administrative, but the bug is in a privileged firmware-fed device-management path and the runtime_size versus image_size check suggests a constrained corruption candidate that should not be blindly auto-closed without confirming the transfer destination and DMA or host-memory implications. ====================================================================== UPSTREAM PATCH SUMMARY ====================================================================== Patch: accel/ivpu: Add bounds check for firmware runtime memory Commit: f8ab60ae9309e76d9a09c601c10cc222e25b3d5b Upstream URL: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=f8ab60ae9309e76d9a09c601c10cc222e25b3d5b Commit description: Validate that the firmware runtime memory specified in the image header is properly aligned and sized to hold the firmware image. This prevents errors during memory allocation and image transfer. Fixes: 2007e21 ("accel/ivpu: Split FW runtime and global memory buffers") Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org # v7.0+ Signed-off-by: Andrzej Kacprowski Reviewed-by: Karol Wachowski Signed-off-by: Karol Wachowski Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260529120853.135876-1-andrzej.kacprowski@linux.intel.com Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman Changed files: drivers/accel/ivpu/ivpu_fw.c Diff excerpt: Not included in this email. See the upstream URL for the full patch. Full patch: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=f8ab60ae9309e76d9a09c601c10cc222e25b3d5b ====================================================================== DETAILED REPORT METHODOLOGY ====================================================================== The original Linux kernel CVE announcement for CVE-2026-53206 can be found here: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-53206 The original CVE announcement normally does not include a security-level estimate. In particular, it may not contain a CVSS assessment, an impact level, or enough information to determine whether the reported bug is a practically relevant security issue. One purpose of this parallel CVE list is to provide that missing technical and prioritization information. The original goal of the AL-KERNEL project was to prioritize Linux kernel CVE analysis automatically before manual review. The system can also help identify non-security issues that may be suitable for automatic closure. This report was generated by AL-KERNEL, an AI-assisted Linux kernel vulnerability analysis system developed by Alexander Larkin. The first analysis stage combines an autonomous classifier with additional LLM-based analysis. The autonomous classifier runs locally on a CPU and is based on a backpropagation neural network. Together, these mechanisms produce a technical vulnerability description, identify likely weakness types, estimate CVSS severity, and provide input for ActionableScore. Two CVSS estimates are retained because incomplete kernel vulnerability information often permits more than one defensible interpretation: Conservative CVSS vector: AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L The Best / paranoid CVSS vector: AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:H The Best / paranoid CVSS score: 5.6 The conservative vector represents a lower-impact interpretation. The Best/paranoid vector intentionally represents a plausible upper-bound interpretation and should not automatically be treated as demonstrated real-world impact. CVSS may also need to be adjusted for a particular Linux deployment, because actual reachability, privileges, enabled kernel configuration, hardware, namespaces, exposed device nodes, and other environmental conditions can differ significantly between systems. A separate ActionableScore mechanism evaluates practical remediation urgency. Its analysis may include reachability, attack prerequisites, subsystem exposure, memory-corruption characteristics, denial-of-service reliability, and possible confidentiality, integrity, or privilege-escalation impact. Conservative ActionableScore: 0 Paranoid ActionableScore: 3 The final base severity is taken directly from the second tab-separated field of the AL-KERNEL classification result. ActionableScore does not replace or independently override that final AL-KERNEL decision, and if ActionableScore adjusted impact level of ALKERNEL, then you would see self-readable flags above like INCREASED_TO_HIGH_BASED_ON_ACTIONABLESCOREHIGHEREQTHAN7. For an AL-KERNEL result of MODERATE, this report uses the following additional presentation split: ActionableScore below 5 -> MODERATE REGULAR ActionableScore 5 or more -> MODERATE 7.0 The distinction between MODERATE REGULAR and MODERATE 7.0 makes it possible to identify Moderate issues that should receive manual analysis and fixes before lower-priority MODERATE REGULAR issues. In many cases, MODERATE REGULAR fixes may wait for a later rebase or routine update. There is one override in which MODERATE REGULAR becomes MODERATE 7.0 even when the ActionableScore is below 5. When the AL-KERNEL result contains the KPANIC flag, a MODERATE result is always presented as MODERATE 7.0. The KPANIC flag selected with few regexps without usage of AI at all, so it helps to detect cases when Kernel Crash happens and similar (to filter False-Negative results from the LLM usage). KPANIC indicates that a reliable kernel crash, kernel panic, or similarly serious kernel availability impact was identified by the classification workflow. AL-KERNEL base severity for this report: MODERATE KPANIC detected for this report: NO Published priority for this report (same as in Subject): MODERATE REGULAR These results are intended to support engineering triage. They are machine-generated estimates, and cases marked for manual review should be validated by a human security engineer before final disposition. For more info read docs linked from here: https://kernelcve.org/ (and you can submit you own patch there to generate such a report for non-existant CVE-id yet). Note that in many cases this AI tool selects higher severity, than real is (means you can expect Importants instead of Moderate 7.0 or Moderates 7.0 instead of regular Moderates). If you see such cases, please use reply email interface to add additional manual analyses info to this particular CVE. And please, please, let me know when you see Lows instead of Importants or Important instead of Low (because particular for such cases I need to tune this AI tool to make it better for this one and next similar). My contact email for such notifications is alexanjelausa@gmail.com (and both send reply to CVE record itself too and see "reply" button below for howto reply).