Bug 2516877 (CVE-2026-74278) - CVE-2026-74278 kernel: ALSA: seq: Fix kernel heap address leak in bounce_error_event()
Summary: CVE-2026-74278 kernel: ALSA: seq: Fix kernel heap address leak in bounce_erro...
Keywords:
Status: NEW
Alias: CVE-2026-74278
Product: Security Response
Classification: Other
Component: vulnerability
Version: unspecified
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
medium
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Product Security DevOps Team
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2026-08-15 06:38 UTC by OSIDB Bzimport
Modified: 2026-08-20 13:58 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed:
Embargoed:


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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-08-15 06:38:10 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

ALSA: seq: Fix kernel heap address leak in bounce_error_event()

The comment above bounce_error_event() documents that user clients
should receive SNDRV_SEQ_EVENT_BOUNCE with the original event embedded
as variable-length data, while kernel clients should receive
SNDRV_SEQ_EVENT_KERNEL_ERROR with a quoted kernel pointer.

However, the implementation unconditionally uses
SNDRV_SEQ_EVENT_KERNEL_ERROR with data.quote.event set to the raw
struct snd_seq_event pointer for all clients.  When a bounce error
event is delivered to a USER_CLIENT via snd_seq_read(), the kernel
heap address in data.quote.event is exposed to userspace through
copy_to_user() in the fixed-length branch.

This is a distinct leak path from the one addressed by commit
705dd6dcbc0e ("ALSA: seq: Clear variable event pointer on read"),
which sanitizes data.ext.ptr in the variable-length branch of
snd_seq_read().  The bounce_error_event() leak uses fixed-length
events that take the else branch where no sanitization occurs.

Differentiate the bounce event by client type.  For USER_CLIENT,
send SNDRV_SEQ_EVENT_BOUNCE with SNDRV_SEQ_EVENT_LENGTH_VARIABLE
and data.ext pointing to the original event.  The variable-length
path in snd_seq_event_dup() copies the event data into chained
cells, and snd_seq_expand_var_event() copies only the content --
never the pointer -- to userspace.  For KERNEL_CLIENT, keep the
existing SNDRV_SEQ_EVENT_KERNEL_ERROR behavior with the quoted
pointer.


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