CVE-2026-97989 json
vduse: validate virtqueue alignment
published last mo. modified 21d ago also EUVD-2026-86643
- cvss
- —
- not scored
- cisa kev
- Not listed
- not in CISA's catalog
- epss
- 0.2%
- EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 6%
- public exploits
- 0
- none known
Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
vduse: validate virtqueue alignment
vduse_validate_config() only checks the upper bound of vq_align. Invalid values can therefore reach vring_create_virtqueue_map(). The split-ring helpers use align - 1 as a bit mask, so the alignment must be a non-zero power of two. A zero value makes vring_size() drop the descriptor and available-ring part and vring_init() leave the used ring pointer NULL.
The VIRTIO spec requires the used ring to start at an address aligned to at least 4 bytes. Reject values below VRING_USED_ALIGN_SIZE as well as non-power-of-two values before they reach the virtio ring helpers.
Opening a virtio-net device created with vq_align=0 triggered:
BUG: KASAN: null-ptr-deref in virtqueue_kick_prepare_split+0xe3/0x100 Read of size 2 at addr 0000000000000000 by task systemd-network/1062
Call Trace (relevant frames): dump_stack_lvl print_report kasan_report __asan_load2 virtqueue_kick_prepare_split+0xe3/0x100 virtqueue_kick_prepare+0x40/0x60 try_fill_recv+0x857/0x1250 virtnet_open+0x189/0x460 __dev_open+0x225/0x390 __dev_change_flags+0x368/0x3b0 netif_change_flags+0x56/0xc0 do_setlink.isra.0+0x68c/0x1e30
Validate the value before it reaches the virtio ring helpers.
Patch / fix
- Linux Linux 6.6.160, 6.12.114, 6.18.57, 7.2.7, 7.3
- linux Debian 13 6.12.115-2
- linux Debian 14 7.2.7-1
debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-97989
- linux Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-42.42
- linux-aws Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1016.17
- linux-gcp Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1016.18
- linux-ibm Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1017.17
- linux-riscv Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-42.42.1
- linux-oracle Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1015.16
- linux-hwe-7.0 Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 7.0.0-42.42~24.04.1
- linux-oem-7.0 Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1017.17
ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2026-97989
Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0
- kernel-source openSUSE Tumbleweed 7.2.9-1.1
opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:12074-1
- kernel Azure Linux 3.0 6.6.161.1-1
azure linux advisories AZL-104751
Azure Linux vulnerability data, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, from https://github.com/microsoft/AzureLinuxVulnerabilityData via OSV, under the MIT licence; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. MIT
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/650bac9c73d3b4d83be683028283654c05346556 commit
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/5d4bdca17d87c90b1d888f8846a781a18aa453c9 commit
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/831dab9b9bcc184adf78f18b5b788316e3174aec commit
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/c3c3b0839a1197530cc18f535062fc84dbdfc885 commit
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/fa2c25b4add57888acfa89e398389e267bff3dcf commit
Is CVE-2026-97989 in your stack? Fencer shows which of your repositories are affected as soon as an advisory lands, and opens the fix as a pull request.
Check with FencerVendor advisories
What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.
red hat product security vex CVE-2026-97989 updated cvss 5.5
kernel: vduse: validate virtqueue alignment
-
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +82 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-9 Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 5 openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-9affected: workaround, no fix available “Fix deferred”
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Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 kernel-rt, kernel-rt-selftests-internal Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-8not affected: vulnerable code not present
Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf
Exploit prediction
0.17% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 6% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-11).
Affected products
- Linux Linux
Classification
- Technology feeds
References
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/650bac9c73d3b4d83be683028283654c05346556
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/5d4bdca17d87c90b1d888f8846a781a18aa453c9
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/831dab9b9bcc184adf78f18b5b788316e3174aec
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/c3c3b0839a1197530cc18f535062fc84dbdfc885
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/fa2c25b4add57888acfa89e398389e267bff3dcf
Sources
- CVE List CVE-2026-97989
- NVD CVE-2026-97989
Fencer Intel keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.