From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: AL-KERNEL To: kernel-cve@kernelcve.org Subject: [CVE-2026-68128][IMPORTANT] ice: reject out-of-range ptype in ice_parser_profile_init Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2026 10:30:47 -0400 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-AL-KERNEL-CVE: CVE-2026-68128 X-AL-KERNEL-Priority: IMPORTANT X-AL-KERNEL-Severity: IMPORTANT X-AL-KERNEL-Base-Severity: IMPORTANT X-AL-KERNEL-KPANIC: YES X-AL-KERNEL-ActionableScore: 8 X-AL-KERNEL-ActionableScore-Lower: 5 X-AL-KERNEL-Commit: fe2f8d5a77adea38e889fe3d6cde1b76d4a635bf List-Id: CVE: CVE-2026-68128 Priority: IMPORTANT AL-KERNEL base severity: IMPORTANT KPANIC flag: YES Patch: ice: reject out-of-range ptype in ice_parser_profile_init Commit: fe2f8d5a77adea38e889fe3d6cde1b76d4a635bf Upstream patch: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=fe2f8d5a77adea38e889fe3d6cde1b76d4a635bf Original CVE announcement: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-68128 Analysis date: Mon, 10 Aug 2026 10:30:47 -0400 ActionableScore: 8 ActionableScore lower bound: 5 Actionable bucket: Strong Important candidate / Actionable Moderate at minimum Manual review required: YES Summary: A malicious SR-IOV VF can provide an out-of-range ptype through VIRTCHNL, causing the Intel ice PF driver to write past the ptypes bitmap in ice_parser_profile_init and crash the host kernel, with broader host memory corruption impact requiring manual review. ====================================================================== ABOUT THIS REPORT ====================================================================== The original Linux kernel CVE announcement for CVE-2026-68128 is available here: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-68128 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: IMPORTANT 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-2026-68128 IMPORTANT CHECK WITH IMPACT FROM ORIG NN MODERATE Maybe valid. Check manually. Hints by AL-KERNEL: The best (paranoid) CVSS is 'AV:A/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H';*CWE-787;CWE-129;*CWE-20;Other CVSS 'AV:A/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:H';BEST CVSS score: '8';DESCR 'An out of bounds write in the Intel ice PF driver can occur because ice_parser_profile_init uses rslt ptype as a bit index for prof ptypes without validating it against ICE_FLOW_PTYPE_MAX. A malicious VF can provide an out of range ptype through VIRTCHNL, causing set_bit to write past the end of the bitmap and crash the host kernel. This is not a normal Internet reachable packet path. Exploitation usually requires access to an assigned SR IOV VF or a guest context able to send crafted VIRTCHNL messages to the PF driver. For the CVSS the PR:L is used for the paranoid score because the attacker needs control over a VF or guest side device interface, but does not need administrative privileges on the host. Impact is at least denial of service and may include broader confidentiality or integrity impact because the primitive is an attacker influenced OOB write in kernel memory.';YES REQUIRES MANUAL CHECK; ,and ActionableScore result is Strong Important candidate / Actionable Moderate at minimum (with actual score 7) YES REMOTE OOB DANGER NULLPTR NETWORK KERNEL_PANIC_PLUS_UAF HARDWARE DEBUGFS KPANIC KPANIC INCREASED_TO_HIGH_BASED_ON_GUESSCVSS YES NO checked ====================================================================== ACTIONABLESCORE ANALYSIS ====================================================================== ActionableScore=8 ActionableScoreLower=5 ## 1. ActionableScore * Conservative score: 5 * Paranoid score: 8 * Final recommended bucket: **Strong Important candidate / Actionable Moderate at minimum**:: ## 2. Signal breakdown Conservative signals: * Local unprivileged or reduced-privilege trigger: +1. A malicious VF or guest-side VF context can influence the PF driver through VIRTCHNL without host-root privileges. * Firmware/device-mediated external influence: +1. The input reaches the host PF driver through the SR-IOV VF to PF control channel, not through a normal local syscall or Internet packet path. * Constrained kernel buffer overwrite: +1. set_bit(rslt->ptype, prof->ptypes) writes past a fixed-size bitmap when ptype >= 1024, but the written value is a constrained bit set rather than an arbitrary payload. * Weak LPE concern: +1. The primitive is an attacker-influenced OOB write in host kernel driver memory, so privilege escalation cannot be dismissed, but no reclaim, arbitrary write, or controlled object replacement is demonstrated. * Reliable kernel crash / strong DoS: +1. The commit includes a reproduced kernel page fault from an out-of-range ptype. * Privileged kernel/device-management memory corruption path: +1. The corruption occurs in the trusted Intel ice PF driver while processing VF-originated configuration. * Constrained primitive penalty: -1. The overwrite target and payload are limited by bitmap layout and set_bit semantics. Conservative total: 5. Paranoid adjustments: * Treat the OOB bitmap write as a stronger memory corruption primitive: +1 additional over the conservative constrained-write interpretation. * Treat guest/VF to host PF memory corruption as stronger LPE plausibility: +1 additional. * Confidentiality impact plausible: +1. If adjacent kernel objects can be influenced, disclosure or bypass paths require manual review. * Integrity impact plausible: +1. A host kernel OOB write from a malicious VF can plausibly affect trusted state beyond a crash. Paranoid total: 8. ## 3. Reachability analysis The bug is reachable when an Intel ice PF exposes SR-IOV VFs and a malicious VF can send a crafted VIRTCHNL_OP_ADD_RSS_CFG or equivalent control message with ptype >= ICE_FLOW_PTYPE_MAX. This is not directly Internet reachable and should not be treated as a normal remote network packet parsing bug. The realistic attacker is a guest, tenant, or reduced-privilege environment with control over an assigned VF or VF-side driver behavior. Namespaces do not directly create reachability by themselves, but virtualization and SR-IOV delegation can lower the practical privilege boundary because the attacker does not need host-root privileges. The path is hardware and configuration dependent, but SR-IOV Intel ice deployments are common enough in data-center networking that this should not be auto-closed as a niche local-only crash. Call-site confidence: high. The patch directly shows the unsafe set_bit call and the commit message identifies the malicious VF VIRTCHNL source and a reproduced crash. ## 4. Severity interpretation This is stronger than an ordinary Moderate because it is a host kernel OOB write reachable from a VF-controlled device-management path. The demonstrated effect is a reliable host kernel crash, so the conservative interpretation is Actionable Moderate. The realistic exploitation evidence currently shows DoS, not a proven LPE. However, the primitive is not merely a NULL dereference. It is an attacker-influenced out-of-bounds bitmap write in the PF driver, which makes the paranoid interpretation a Strong Important candidate requiring manual review. ## 5. One-sentence report phrase A malicious SR-IOV VF can provide an out-of-range ptype through VIRTCHNL, causing the Intel ice PF driver to write past the ptypes bitmap in ice_parser_profile_init and crash the host kernel, with broader host memory corruption impact requiring manual review. ## 6. Manual review recommendation MANUAL CHECK REQUIRED. Reason: the issue is an OOB write in host kernel memory reachable from a malicious VF through a guest-to-host device channel. The demonstrated impact is DoS, but the corruption primitive and virtualization boundary make auto-closure unsafe. ====================================================================== UPSTREAM PATCH SUMMARY ====================================================================== Patch: ice: reject out-of-range ptype in ice_parser_profile_init Commit: fe2f8d5a77adea38e889fe3d6cde1b76d4a635bf Upstream URL: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=fe2f8d5a77adea38e889fe3d6cde1b76d4a635bf Commit description: set_bit(rslt->ptype, prof->ptypes) operates on a DECLARE_BITMAP of ICE_FLOW_PTYPE_MAX (1024) bits. Nothing prevents a malicious VF from providing ptype >= 1024 through VIRTCHNL, resulting in a write past the end of the bitmap and a kernel page fault. Reproduced with a custom kernel module injecting a crafted VIRTCHNL_OP_ADD_RSS_CFG on E810-C QSFP (8086:1592), FW 4.91 0x800214af 1.3909.0, ICE COMMS DDP 1.3.53.0, kernel 7.1.0-rc1. crash_parser: ice_parser_profile_init @ ffffffffc0d61b60 crash_parser: setting ptype=0xffff (max valid=1023) crash_parser: calling ice_parser_profile_init -- expect OOB crash! BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000000 Oops: Oops: 0002 [#1] SMP NOPTI CPU: 56 UID: 0 PID: 165011 Comm: insmod Kdump: loaded Tainted: G S U OE 7.1.0-rc1 #1 Hardware name: Intel Corporation S2600BPB/S2600BPB RIP: 0010:ice_parser_profile_init+0x2d/0x1d0 [ice] Call Trace: ? __pfx_ice_parser_profile_init+0x10/0x10 [ice] crash_init+0x127/0xff0 [crash_parser] do_one_initcall+0x45/0x310 do_init_module+0x64/0x270 init_module_from_file+0xcc/0xf0 idempotent_init_module+0x17b/0x280 __x64_sys_finit_module+0x6e/0xe0 Bail out early with -EINVAL when ptype is out of range. Fixes: e312b3a ("ice: add API for parser profile initialization") Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org Signed-off-by: Aleksandr Loktionov Reviewed-by: Marcin Szycik Tested-by: Rafal Romanowski Signed-off-by: Tony Nguyen Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260717185340.3595286-12-anthony.l.nguyen@intel.com Signed-off-by: Jakub Kicinski Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman Changed files: drivers/net/ethernet/intel/ice/ice_parser.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=fe2f8d5a77adea38e889fe3d6cde1b76d4a635bf ====================================================================== DETAILED REPORT METHODOLOGY ====================================================================== The original Linux kernel CVE announcement for CVE-2026-68128 can be found here: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-68128 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:A/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:H The Best / paranoid CVSS vector: AV:A/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H The Best / paranoid CVSS score: 8 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: 5 Paranoid ActionableScore: 8 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: IMPORTANT KPANIC detected for this report: YES Published priority for this report (same as in Subject): IMPORTANT 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).