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CVE-2026-90191
mailbox: riscv-sbi-mpxy: validate RPMI notification lengths
Published 2026-09-17 (31 days ago) by the Linux kernel CNA. Subsystem drivers/mailbox. Debian urgency: unimportant.
What to do, per Debian release
Debian's own status for CVE-2026-90191 in every release this site tracks, and what each one means in practice. Every status below is the one the Debian Security Team publishes for this CVE. source
| Release | Status | Version | What this means |
|---|---|---|---|
| Debian 12bookworm | not affected | 6.1.190-1 | Nothing to do. bookworm never shipped the vulnerable code. |
| Debian 13trixie | not affected | 6.12.113-1 | Nothing to do. trixie never shipped the vulnerable code. |
| Debian 14forky | fixed | 7.2.6-1 | Update the kernel and reboot. Fixed in 7.2.6-1. A running kernel keeps the old code until the machine restarts. |
| Debian unstablesid | fixed | 7.2.6-1 | Update the kernel and reboot. Fixed in 7.2.6-1. A running kernel keeps the old code until the machine restarts. |
The vulnerability
What the bug is
The SBI return value controls how many bytes are copied from shared memory into the RPMI notification buffer. It is not validated against the negotiated shared-memory size before that copy. The event walker also uses a reversed loop condition and can inspect a short event record. Validate the complete notification length before copying it, iterate only while a full event header remains, and stop when a declared event payload extends beyond the copied notification data.
Where it lives
The fix touches these files. If the subsystem is one you do not use, the practical exposure is lower, though the package is still the vulnerable one.
drivers/mailbox/riscv-sbi-mpxy-mbox.c
- What this is
- RISC-V RPMI AND MPXY DRIVERSMAINTAINERS section matched on drivers/mailbox/riscv-sbi-mpxy-mbox.c · linux-riscv@lists.infradead.org
Check it on the machine
grep -wE 'CONFIG_MAILBOX|CONFIG_RISCV_SBI_MPXY_MBOX' /boot/config-$(uname -r)Reads the booted kernel's own configuration, on the machine and nowhere else. =y is built in, =m is a module, and an is not set line means the code is not there.
Show whether Debian builds this, per release
Debian builds this, but not on every flavour. At least one release below builds the code on some of its kernel flavours and not on others, so the answer depends on the architecture and flavour installed. The build rule could not be established for 2 releases, so nothing is claimed about those.
- bookworm, trixie?
- forky, sidYnot built on amd64/amd64, amd64/cloud-amd64, amd64/rt-amd64, arm64/arm64, arm64/arm64-16k, arm64/cloud-arm64, arm64/rt-arm64, armhf/armmp, armhf/armmp-lpae, loong64/loong64, ppc64el/powerpc64le, ppc64el/powerpc64le-64k, s390x/s390x
- ?
- not established - no Makefile entry for the affected file
- Y
- built in where it is built at all; some flavours do not build it
Where a release above reads "not established", no build rule for the affected file was found in that release's kernel tree. That is a gap in this lookup, not a finding that the code is absent.
- Build switches
- CONFIG_MAILBOX, CONFIG_RISCV_SBI_MPXY_MBOX
- Reads as
- all on means the file is compiled; any one off means it is not.
From the configuration Debian publishes for every kernel flavour it builds. It covers only the architectures Debian ships a linux-config package for, and nothing about a kernel you built yourself. Debian's own status above stays authoritative about the source package.MAINTAINERS kbuild Makefiles Debian linux-config packages
Signals
- Published
- 2026-09-17 (31 days ago)source
- CVSS
- 8.4 high
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:Hsource recompute it - Attack vector
- local (AV:L)source
- EPSS
- 0.19%, higher than 8.4% of all CVEssource
- CISA KEV
- not listedthe KEV catalogue
- Debian urgency
- unimportantsource
- Subsystem
- drivers/mailbox
Upstream fixes
The versions the CNA records as introducing and fixing this, and the commit for each. source
| Introduced | Fixed in | Commit |
|---|---|---|
| 6.18 | 6.18.52 | cbc24bce70df |
| 6.18 | 7.2.6 | c7bc5e7677bc |
| 6.18 | 7.3 | 11d5af151bcb |
Why the CNA scored it this way
Quoted from the kernel CNA's own scoring file, word for word. A highlighted metric carries the most severe value CVSS v3.1 defines for it, which is what pushes the score up. source
- AV:LAttack vector, local
- The malformed length is sret.value from sbi_ecall(SBI_EXT_MPXY, SBI_EXT_MPXY_GET_NOTIFICATION_EVENTS) in mpxy_get_notifications(), invoked by mpxy_mbox_irq_thread via mpxy_mbox_peek_data when the MPXY channel MSI fires. That SBI shared-memory/return path is on-chip firmware or an RPMI platform MCU, not a network, Bluetooth, or USB protocol.
- AC:LAttack complexity, low
- A malicious SBI MPXY implementation fully controls sret.value. Returning a length greater than mpxy_shmem_size-sizeof(*notif_data), or a negative value so that sret.value+16 wraps to size_t, makes memcpy() overflow the mpxy_shmem_size mchan->notif buffer on every successful GET_NOTIFICATION_EVENTS with no race.
- PR:NPrivileges required, none
- mpxy_mbox_irq_thread has no capable() or credential check. After rpmi_clk_probe()/rpmi_sysmsi_probe() call mbox_request_channel(), mpxy_mbox_startup() enables the MSI via request_threaded_irq(); compromised SBI firmware or the RPMI microcontroller can fire that IRQ and return the bad length without a Linux user account.
- UI:NUser interaction, none
- mpxy_mbox_startup() enables MSI and events when clk-rpmi or rpmi-sysmsi bind at boot via mbox_request_channel(). The firmware then delivers GET_NOTIFICATION_EVENTS through mpxy_mbox_irq_thread; no victim must open a device, mount a filesystem, or otherwise interact.
- S:UScope, unchanged
- memcpy() corrupts host kernel heap around mchan->notif. KVM's vcpu_sbi_ext_mpxy only forwards guest SBI MPXY ECALLs to userspace (and is default_disabled) and never enters this mailbox driver, so this is not a guest-to-host escape.
- C:HConfidentiality impact, high
- memcpy(notif_data, mpxy->shmem, sret.value+16) over-reads past the per-CPU shmem pages and writes firmware-controlled bytes past the mpxy_shmem_size kmalloc notif buffer, a heap overflow that can be leveraged for kernel memory disclosure.
- I:HIntegrity impact, high
- The same unbounded memcpy is a heap out-of-bounds write of SBI-controlled shared-memory contents past mchan->notif, smashing adjacent slab objects and enabling control-flow hijacking.
- A:HAvailability impact, high
- Copying a huge or wrapped sret.value into the mpxy_shmem_size notif allocation walks unmapped heap/guard pages or corrupts allocator metadata, causing a kernel oops or panic in mpxy_mbox_irq_thread.