[CVE-2026-72009][LOW] pmdomain: imx93-blk-ctrl: Extract PHY as shared domain for DSI/CSI [ Upstream

[AL-KERNEL <alkernel@kernelcve.org>]

CVE: CVE-2026-72009
Priority: LOW
AL-KERNEL base severity: LOW
KPANIC flag: NO
Patch: pmdomain: imx93-blk-ctrl: Extract PHY as shared domain for DSI/CSI [ Upstream
Commit: 4fd5b33faf092ef2d09f730a7d9e49f9e976ac67
Upstream patch: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=4fd5b33faf092ef2d09f730a7d9e49f9e976ac67
Original CVE announcement: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-72009
Analysis date: Sat, 15 Aug 2026 12:50:20 -0400
ActionableScore: 0
ActionableScore lower bound: unknown
Actionable bucket: Ordinary Moderate / Low-like
Manual review required: NO

Summary:
The i.MX93 media block controller could disable shared MIPI PHY clock/reset resources while DSI or CSI was still active, causing local camera/display availability failures on affected hardware.

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ABOUT THIS REPORT
======================================================================

The original Linux kernel CVE announcement for CVE-2026-72009 is available here:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-72009

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: LOW
Manual review required: NO

A detailed explanation of the methodology and priority rules is included
at the end of this message.

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AL-KERNEL CLASSIFICATION RESULT
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CVE-2026-72009	LOW	CHECK WITH IMPACT FROM ORIG NN LOW	Maybe valid. Check manually. Hints by AL-KERNEL: The best (paranoid) CVSS is 'AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H';*CWE-664;CWE-667;CWE-404;Other CVSS 'AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L';BEST CVSS score: '4.7';DESCR 'The i.MX93 media block controller models MIPI DSI and MIPI CSI as separate power domains even though they share MIPI PHY clock and reset control bits. If one domain powers down the shared resource while the other domain is still active, the camera or display path may stop working or enter an inconsistent hardware state. For the CVSS the PR:L is used in the paranoid score because a local user or service with access to camera or display device nodes may be able to exercise runtime PM paths without full administrator privileges. The issue is not network reachable and requires the affected i.MX93 hardware and driver configuration. Impact is availability only for the media subsystem, with no evidence of memory corruption, information disclosure, or privilege escalation.';NO MANUAL CHECK; ,and ActionableScore result is Ordinary Moderate / Low-like (with actual score 0)	YES	NOMEMCHK ERRORPATH IMPROVEONLY LINUS 	YES	NO	checked

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ACTIONABLESCORE ANALYSIS
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ActionableScore=0

## 1. ActionableScore

* Conservative score: 0
* Paranoid score: 0
* Final recommended bucket: **Ordinary Moderate / Low-like**::

## 2. Signal breakdown

* Availability impact realistic: +1
  The shared MIPI PHY clock/reset bits can be disabled while DSI or CSI is still active, causing camera/display malfunction or media pipeline failure.

* Local unprivileged trigger, paranoid only: +1
  In some embedded deployments, a local user or service with access to camera/display device nodes may indirectly exercise runtime PM paths. This is not enough to make the issue broadly actionable.

* Physical-only or rare hardware-only condition: -2
  The bug is specific to i.MX93 media block power-domain modeling and requires affected hardware plus DSI/CSI usage.

* No memory corruption: +0
  The patch reorganizes power-domain ownership and subdomain relationships. It does not show UAF, OOB access, double free, refcount abuse, type confusion, stale callback, or attacker-controlled memory reuse.

* No privilege escalation plausibility: +0
  The failure mode is incorrect hardware resource lifetime management, not a kernel object lifetime or permission-boundary bug.

* No network reachability: +0
  The affected path is local hardware/runtime-PM behavior, not packet or protocol parsing.

## 3. Reachability analysis

The issue can be triggered only on systems using the affected i.MX93 media block controller with MIPI DSI and/or CSI active. A local process or media service may be able to exercise the relevant runtime PM transitions if it has access to the camera/display stack, but this does not imply ordinary unprivileged reachability on all systems. Namespaces and containers do not materially increase exposure unless device nodes are deliberately passed through. The path is not remotely network-triggerable and is not a default exposure on general-purpose Linux systems.

## 4. Severity interpretation

This behaves like a low security impact hardware resource-lifetime bug. The realistic impact is availability loss of the media subsystem, such as camera or display failure. There is no evidence of memory corruption, confidentiality impact, integrity impact, privilege escalation, or a cross-boundary security bypass. Even under a paranoid interpretation, the issue remains availability-only and hardware-specific.

## 5. One-sentence report phrase

The i.MX93 media block controller could disable shared MIPI PHY clock/reset resources while DSI or CSI was still active, causing local camera/display availability failures on affected hardware.

## 6. Manual review recommendation

NO MANUAL CHECK NEEDED

This can be auto-closed for security triage unless the product treats i.MX93 camera/display availability as a safety-critical function.

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UPSTREAM PATCH SUMMARY
======================================================================

Patch: pmdomain: imx93-blk-ctrl: Extract PHY as shared domain for DSI/CSI [ Upstream
Commit: 4fd5b33faf092ef2d09f730a7d9e49f9e976ac67
Upstream URL: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=4fd5b33faf092ef2d09f730a7d9e49f9e976ac67

Changed files:
  drivers/pmdomain/imx/imx93-blk-ctrl.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=4fd5b33faf092ef2d09f730a7d9e49f9e976ac67

======================================================================
DETAILED REPORT METHODOLOGY
======================================================================

The original Linux kernel CVE announcement for CVE-2026-72009 can be found here:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-72009

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:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
  The Best / paranoid CVSS vector: AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
  The Best / paranoid CVSS score: 4.7

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: unknown
  Paranoid ActionableScore: 0

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: LOW
KPANIC detected for this report: NO
Published priority for this report (same as in Subject): LOW

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).