Bug 2532235 (CVE-2026-89761)

Summary: CVE-2026-89761 kernel: apparmor: fix out-of-bounds write when null terminating a label vec
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: akhatavk, aos-team-art-private, asdas, dpaolell, jdelft, jupierce, lgarciaa, mbiarnes, ppalepu, ppostler, prdhamdh, rhel-process-autobot, sghai, sidsharm, suppawar, vlaad, watson-tool-maintainers
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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Doc Text:
A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's AppArmor security module. An out-of-bounds write vulnerability exists when null terminating a label vector due to improper memory allocation. An unprivileged local attacker can exploit this by writing to specific system files, potentially leading to a denial of service (DoS) or, in some cases, privilege escalation. This vulnerability requires an AppArmor policy to be loaded on the system.
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-09-11 21:35:26 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

apparmor: fix out-of-bounds write when null terminating a label vec

aa_vec_unique() null terminates at vec[n - dups] when VEC_FLAG_TERMINATE
is passed. If the components are all distinct no duplicates are dropped,
dups is 0 and the terminator goes to vec[n], so the caller has to provide
room for n + 1 entries.

aa_label_strn_parse() sets up its vector with vec_setup(profile, vec, len,
gfp) and then calls aa_vec_unique(vec, len, VEC_FLAG_TERMINATE), but
vec_setup() does not reserve the terminator entry. Up to LOCAL_VEC_ENTRIES
it uses the local array of LOCAL_VEC_ENTRIES pointers, above that it
allocates exactly len pointers. The terminator therefore lands one entry
past the end of the local array when len is LOCAL_VEC_ENTRIES, and one
entry past the end of the allocation when len is larger.

len comes from the number of "//&" separated components in the label name
and label_count_strn_entries() does not bound it. An unprivileged task
reaches the parse by writing to /proc/self/attr/apparmor/current or through
lsm_set_self_attr(2), both of which go through do_setattr(), and the name
is parsed before the change_profile permission is checked.
The query_label() path behind the securityfs .access file, which is
mode 0666, performs no permission check at all. Every component has to
resolve to a loaded profile, so a system with policy loaded is required.

The other two VEC_FLAG_TERMINATE users work on a label vec that
aa_label_alloc() has already sized with "+ 1 for null terminator entry on
vec". Reserve the same entry in vec_setup() and DEFINE_VEC(). Passing
len + 1 from the caller instead would move len == LOCAL_VEC_ENTRIES out of
the local array and into kzalloc().