CVE Catalog

CVE-2026-63887

CriticalCVSS 9.8
Published: Updated: Translated: NVD NIST

Exploitation Probability (EPSS)

Elevated risk
0.75%

51th percentile - higher than 51% of all known CVEs

Summary

In the Linux kernel's SCSI target iSCSI subsystem, a heap buffer overflow vulnerability was found. The iscsi_encode_text_output() function fails to check remaining space in the 8 KB rsp_buf, allowing up to 32 KB of "NotUnderstood" responses for unknown keys, causing an approximately 24 KB overrun.

Risk Assessment

An attacker can send a crafted iSCSI login request causing a heap buffer overflow, potentially leading to system crash or arbitrary code execution in kernel context.

Recommendation

Immediately update the Linux kernel to a version containing the fix, which introduces buffer boundary checks using snprintf() and proper error handling.

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

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Original NVD description (English source)

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: scsi: target: iscsi: Bound iscsi_encode_text_output() appends to rsp_buf iscsi_encode_text_output() concatenates "key=value\0" records into login->rsp_buf, an 8192-byte kzalloc(MAX_KEY_VALUE_PAIRS) buffer allocated in iscsit_alloc_login_setup_buffer(). The three sprintf() call sites in this function (lines 1398, 1411, 1424 in v7.1-rc2) never check the remaining buffer capacity: *length += sprintf(output_buf, "%s=%s", er->key, er->value); *length += 1; output_buf = textbuf + *length; The 8192-byte ceiling at iscsi_target_check_login_request() bounds the *input* Login PDU payload, but a single PDU can carry up to 2048 minimal four-byte "a=b\0" pairs, each unknown key expanding to a 16-byte "a=NotUnderstood\0" output record via iscsi_add_notunderstood_response(). 2048 * 16 = 32 KiB of output into an 8 KiB buffer, producing a ~24 KiB heap overrun in the kmalloc-8k slab. The fix introduces a static iscsi_encode_text_record() helper that uses snprintf() with a per-call bounds check against the remaining buffer, and threads a u32 textbuf_size parameter through iscsi_encode_text_output(). Both call sites in iscsi_target_handle_csg_zero() (PHASE_SECURITY) and iscsi_target_handle_csg_one() (PHASE_OPERATIONAL) pass MAX_KEY_VALUE_PAIRS. On overflow the encoder logs the condition, calls iscsi_release_extra_responses() to drop queued records, and returns -1; both caller sites now emit ISCSI_STATUS_CLS_INITIATOR_ERR / ISCSI_LOGIN_STATUS_INIT_ERR via iscsit_tx_login_rsp() before returning, so the initiator sees an explicit failed-login response rather than a silent connection drop. (Prior to this patch only the PHASE_OPERATIONAL caller did that; the PHASE_SECURITY caller is converted to the same shape.)

Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS