Bug 2468226 (CVE-2026-43442)

Summary: CVE-2026-43442 kernel: io_uring: fix physical SQE bounds check for SQE_MIXED 128-byte ops
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
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Priority: unspecified    
Version: unspecifiedCC: rhel-process-autobot, watson-tool-maintainers
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security
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Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's io_uring subsystem. An incorrect bounds check for 128-byte Submission Queue Entry (SQE) operations, when IORING_SETUP_SQE_MIXED is used without IORING_SETUP_NO_SQARRAY, allows an unprivileged local user to remap logical SQE positions to arbitrary physical indices. This can lead to an out-of-bounds read, potentially disclosing sensitive information from kernel memory.
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-05-08 15:05:46 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

io_uring: fix physical SQE bounds check for SQE_MIXED 128-byte ops

When IORING_SETUP_SQE_MIXED is used without IORING_SETUP_NO_SQARRAY,
the boundary check for 128-byte SQE operations in io_init_req()
validated the logical SQ head position rather than the physical SQE
index.

The existing check:

  !(ctx->cached_sq_head & (ctx->sq_entries - 1))

ensures the logical position isn't at the end of the ring, which is
correct for NO_SQARRAY rings where physical == logical. However, when
sq_array is present, an unprivileged user can remap any logical
position to an arbitrary physical index via sq_array. Setting
sq_array[N] = sq_entries - 1 places a 128-byte operation at the last
physical SQE slot, causing the 128-byte memcpy in
io_uring_cmd_sqe_copy() to read 64 bytes past the end of the SQE
array.

Replace the cached_sq_head alignment check with a direct validation
of the physical SQE index, which correctly handles both sq_array and
NO_SQARRAY cases.