Bug 2481962 (CVE-2026-45990)

Summary: CVE-2026-45990 kernel: slub: fix data loss and overflow in krealloc()
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security <prodsec-ir-bot>
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Version: unspecifiedCC: rhel-process-autobot, watson-tool-maintainers
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Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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A flaw was found in the Linux kernel. This vulnerability, a type of memory corruption, occurs within the krealloc() and kvrealloc() memory reallocation functions. When memory objects are resized or moved, these functions can incorrectly calculate the amount of data to copy, leading to an out-of-bounds write. This could allow a local attacker to cause system instability or potentially execute arbitrary code with elevated privileges.
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-05-27 15:04:30 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

slub: fix data loss and overflow in krealloc()

Commit 2cd8231796b5 ("mm/slub: allow to set node and align in
k[v]realloc") introduced the ability to force a reallocation if the
original object does not satisfy new alignment or NUMA node, even when
the object is being shrunk.

This introduced two bugs in the reallocation fallback path:

1. Data loss during NUMA migration: The jump to 'alloc_new' happens
   before 'ks' and 'orig_size' are initialized. As a result, the
   memcpy() in the 'alloc_new' block would copy 0 bytes into the new
   allocation.

2. Buffer overflow during shrinking: When shrinking an object while
   forcing a new alignment, 'new_size' is smaller than the old size.
   However, the memcpy() used the old size ('orig_size ?: ks'), leading
   to an out-of-bounds write.

The same overflow bug exists in the kvrealloc() fallback path, where the
old bucket size ksize(p) is copied into the new buffer without being
bounded by the new size.

A simple reproducer:

	// e.g. add to lkdtm as KREALLOC_SHRINK_OVERFLOW
	while (1) {
		void *p = kmalloc(128, GFP_KERNEL);
		p = krealloc_node_align(p, 64, 256, GFP_KERNEL, NUMA_NO_NODE);
		kfree(p);
	}

demonstrates the issue:

  ==================================================================
  BUG: KFENCE: out-of-bounds write in memcpy_orig+0x68/0x130

  Out-of-bounds write at 0xffff8883ad757038 (120B right of kfence-#47):
   memcpy_orig+0x68/0x130
   krealloc_node_align_noprof+0x1c8/0x340
   lkdtm_KREALLOC_SHRINK_OVERFLOW+0x8c/0xc0 [lkdtm]
   lkdtm_do_action+0x3a/0x60 [lkdtm]
   ...

  kfence-#47: 0xffff8883ad756fc0-0xffff8883ad756fff, size=64, cache=kmalloc-64

  allocated by task 316 on cpu 7 at 97.680481s (0.021813s ago):
   krealloc_node_align_noprof+0x19c/0x340
   lkdtm_KREALLOC_SHRINK_OVERFLOW+0x8c/0xc0 [lkdtm]
   lkdtm_do_action+0x3a/0x60 [lkdtm]
   ...
  ==================================================================

Fix it by moving the old size calculation to the top of __do_krealloc()
and bounding all copy lengths by the new allocation size.