[CVE-2026-80581][LOW] ASoC: SOF: ipc4-pcm: Continue the pipeline trigger in case of IPC timeout

[CVE-2026-80581][LOW] ASoC: SOF: ipc4-pcm: Continue the pipeline trigger in case of IPC timeout

[AL-KERNEL]

CVE: CVE-2026-80581
Priority: LOW
AL-KERNEL base severity: LOW
KPANIC flag: NO
Patch: ASoC: SOF: ipc4-pcm: Continue the pipeline trigger in case of IPC timeout
Commit: f2435a46dfa1a5693cf2664afd022db66ee58121
Upstream patch: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=f2435a46dfa1a5693cf2664afd022db66ee58121
Original CVE announcement: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-80581
Analysis date: Wed, 26 Aug 2026 10:50:54 -0400
ActionableScore: 2
ActionableScore lower bound: 1
Actionable bucket: Ordinary Moderate / Low-like. Not an Actionable Moderate candidate
Manual review required: NO

Summary:
ASoC SOF IPC4 PCM pipeline state handling may leave the local audio DSP driver state inconsistent after firmware crash or IPC timeout, causing local audio availability impact without evidence of memory corruption or privilege escalation.

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

The original Linux kernel CVE announcement for CVE-2026-80581 is available here:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-80581

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
======================================================================

CVE-2026-80581	LOW	CHECK WITH IMPACT FROM ORIG NN MODERATE	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-754;CWE-703;*CWE-664;Other CVSS 'AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L';BEST CVSS score: '4.7';DESCR 'ASoC/SOF IPC4 PCM pipeline state handling can leave the local kernel driver state inconsistent when a firmware crash or IPC timeout occurs during a pipeline state transition. The practical impact is local denial of service for the audio DSP path, such as broken audio recovery or failed operation after the DSP is rebooted. For the CVSS the PR:L is used because a local user or local process with access to PCM audio operations may be able to reach the trigger path, but reliable triggering also depends on firmware crash or IPC timeout conditions. The issue is not network reachable and there is no evidence of memory corruption, information disclosure, or privilege escalation. Impact is availability only.';NO MANUAL CHECK; ,and ActionableScore result is Ordinary Moderate / Low-like. Not an Actionable Moderate candidate (with actual score 2)	YES	DANGER SIMPLEFIX HARDWARE  DECREASED_TO_MODERATE_REGULAR_FROM_MODERATE7_BASED_ON_GUESSCVSS_AND_CIANNH DECREASED_TO_LOW_FROM_MODERATE_BASED_ON_ACTIONABLESCORELESSTHAN3	YES	NO	guess

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ACTIONABLESCORE ANALYSIS
======================================================================

ActionableScore=2
ActionableScoreLower=1

## 1. ActionableScore

* Conservative score: 1
* Paranoid score: 2
* Final recommended bucket: **Ordinary Moderate / Low-like. Not an Actionable Moderate candidate**

## 2. Signal breakdown

Triggered signals:

* Local unprivileged trigger: +1
  A local user or local process with access to PCM audio operations may reach the SOF IPC4 PCM trigger path.

* Availability impact realistic: +1
  The bug can leave the local SOF audio DSP pipeline or driver state inconsistent after firmware crash or IPC timeout, causing audio recovery failure or local audio DoS.

Negative or limiting signals:

* Hard or unreliable timing / special condition required: -1
  Reliable triggering depends on firmware crash or IPC timeout, and the commit says the timeout was root caused to scheduling blockage outside the SOF stack.

* Rare and hardware or configuration dependent path: -1
  The issue is limited to ASoC SOF IPC4 audio DSP deployments and does not affect a broad core kernel path.

Not triggered:

* No remote reachable path.
* No memory corruption primitive.
* No UAF, OOB, double free, refcount misuse, arbitrary write, or type confusion.
* No plausible privilege escalation.
* No confidentiality or integrity impact.
* No strong system-wide kernel crash is shown.

Call-site confidence: high. The relevant changed function and local error handling path are present in the supplied patch.

## 3. Reachability analysis

The bug is reachable through local audio pipeline trigger operations on systems using SOF IPC4 firmware. A normal local desktop user with audio access may be able to exercise the PCM path, but reliable triggering also requires a crashed firmware state or an IPC timeout condition. Namespaces and containers do not materially improve reachability unless audio device access is delegated into the container. The path is not network reachable and is not a default exposure on systems without affected SOF IPC4 audio hardware and firmware.

## 4. Severity interpretation

This behaves like an ordinary Moderate or Low-like reliability issue, not an Important-class kernel vulnerability. The patch changes error handling so that local pipeline state updates continue after firmware crash or IPC timeout. The demonstrated impact is availability of the audio DSP path only. Theoretical security impact beyond DoS is not supported because the patch does not show memory lifetime corruption, writable stale state, attacker-controlled object reuse, or a privilege boundary bypass.

## 5. One-sentence report phrase

ASoC SOF IPC4 PCM pipeline state handling may leave the local audio DSP driver state inconsistent after firmware crash or IPC timeout, causing local audio availability impact without evidence of memory corruption or privilege escalation.

## 6. Manual review recommendation

NO MANUAL CHECK NEEDED

This can be auto-closed or handled as low-priority unless the product specifically treats local audio DSP availability as security-sensitive.

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

Patch: ASoC: SOF: ipc4-pcm: Continue the pipeline trigger in case of IPC timeout
Commit: f2435a46dfa1a5693cf2664afd022db66ee58121
Upstream URL: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=f2435a46dfa1a5693cf2664afd022db66ee58121

Commit description:

Ignore IPC errors for pipeline state change if the firmware state is
crashed or the IPC has timed out.

If the firmware has crashed the kernel still needs to go through the state
changes to reset its internal to be able to correctly work the next time
the DSP is booted up.

The case with IPC timeout is a bit more problematic, but it has been
rootcaused to be the result of system scheduling blockage and the firmware
did actually received and handled the message, but the reply handling got
blocked by issues outside of the SOF stack.
So far the best way to handle this is to continue with setting the state.

Fixes: c40aad7 ("ASoC: SOF: ipc4-pcm: Workaround for crashed firmware on system suspend")
Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org
Signed-off-by: Peter Ujfalusi <peter.ujfalusi@linux.intel.com>
Reviewed-by: Kai Vehmanen <kai.vehmanen@linux.intel.com>
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260730112343.26687-1-peter.ujfalusi@linux.intel.com
Signed-off-by: Mark Brown <broonie@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>

Changed files:
  sound/soc/sof/ipc4-pcm.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=f2435a46dfa1a5693cf2664afd022db66ee58121

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

The original Linux kernel CVE announcement for CVE-2026-80581 can be found here:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-80581

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: 1
  Paranoid ActionableScore: 2

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).