Bug 2521404 (CVE-2026-74711)

Summary: CVE-2026-74711 kernel: hwmon: (pmbus) Fix type confusion in notification logic
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
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 hardware monitoring (hwmon) subsystem, specifically within the Power Management Bus (pmbus) driver. This vulnerability arises from a type confusion issue where the system incorrectly interprets data types during notification processing. An attacker could exploit this by manipulating attribute structures, potentially leading to an out-of-bounds read. This could allow for information disclosure or system instability.
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-08-22 15:43:54 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

hwmon: (pmbus) Fix type confusion in notification logic

Sashiko reports:

At the start of the loop in pmbus_notify(), the code unconditionally casts
every attribute to a struct sensor_device_attribute:

drivers/hwmon/pmbus/pmbus_core.c:pmbus_notify() {
    for (i = 0; i < data->num_attributes; i++) {
        struct device_attribute *da = to_dev_attr(data->group.attrs[i]);
        struct sensor_device_attribute *attr = to_sensor_dev_attr(da);
        int index = attr->index;
...
}

However, data->group.attrs can contain other types like struct
pmbus_samples_reg or struct pmbus_sensor, which only embed a base
struct device_attribute.

If da is a struct pmbus_samples_reg, dev_attr is the last member. Casting
it to struct sensor_device_attribute and reading the index field appears
to access memory past the end of the allocation, which might trigger a
slab-out-of-bounds read.

Additionally, if da is a struct pmbus_sensor, casting it causes the index
field to overlap with the page, phase, and reg fields. Could this produce
a garbage mask on little-endian systems that spuriously matches the target
reg, page, and flags during an alert?

Fix the problem by using struct sensor_device_attr in struct pmbus_sensor
and struct pmbus_label. Since those attributes never trigger a
notification, set the value of attr->index to -1 for them. Use this value
to distinguish from boolean attributes which _can_ trigger a notification
and use the index field to encode mask, page, and register values.

Comment 1 Mauro Matteo Cascella 2026-08-24 11:34:38 UTC
Upstream advisory:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/2026082238-CVE-2026-74711-988b@gregkh/T