Linux Kernel up to 6.18.29/7.0.6/7.1-rc2 spi mchp_coreqspi_setup_op buffer overflow

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as critical, has been found in Linux Kernel up to 6.18.29/7.0.6/7.1-rc2. Affected by this vulnerability is the function mchp_coreqspi_setup_op of the component spi. This manipulation causes buffer overflow. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2026-46148. There is no exploit available. It is advisable to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability has been found in Linux Kernel up to 6.18.29/7.0.6/7.1-rc2 and classified as critical. Affected by this vulnerability is the function mchp_coreqspi_setup_op of the component spi. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a buffer overflow vulnerability. The CWE definition for the vulnerability is CWE-120. The product copies an input buffer to an output buffer without verifying that the size of the input buffer is less than the size of the output buffer, leading to a buffer overflow. As an impact it is known to affect confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: spi: microchip-core-qspi: control built-in cs manually The coreQSPI IP supports only a single chip select, which is automagically operated by the hardware - set low when the transmit buffer first gets written to and set high when the number of bytes written to the TOTALBYTES field of the FRAMES register have been sent on the bus. Additional devices must use GPIOs for their chip selects. It was reported to me that if there are two devices attached to this QSPI controller that the in-built chip select is set low while linux tries to access the device attached to the GPIO. This went undetected as the boards that connected multiple devices to the SPI controller all exclusively used GPIOs for chip selects, not relying on the built-in chip select at all. It turns out that this was because the built-in chip select, when controlled automagically, is set low when active and high when inactive, thereby ruling out its use for active-high devices or devices that need to transmit with the chip select disabled. Modify the driver so that it controls chip select directly, retaining the behaviour for mem_ops of setting the chip select active for the entire duration of the transfer in the exec_op callback. For regular transfers, implement the set_cs callback for the core to use. As part of this, the existing setup callback, mchp_coreqspi_setup_op(), is removed. Modifying the CLKIDLE field is not safe to do during operation when there are multiple devices, so this code is removed entirely. Setting the MASTER and ENABLE fields is something that can be done once at probe, it doesn't need to be re-run for each device. Instead the new setup callback sets the built-in chip select to its inactive state for active-low devices, as the reset value of the chip select in software controlled mode is low.

The weakness was shared by The Master. It is possible to read the advisory at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability is known as CVE-2026-46148 since 05/13/2026. The exploitation appears to be easy. Technical details of the vulnerability are known, but there is no available exploit. The pricing for an exploit might be around USD $5k-$25k at the moment (estimation calculated on 06/11/2026).

Upgrading to version 6.18.30, 7.0.7 or 7.1-rc3 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch 998f43196d732f20f9b71eb6ebd973736c9fa911/ee3c99aa102212ad59dc2c19595515c4a6729307/7672749e1496215e8683ce57cf323119033954cf is able to eliminate this problem. The bugfix is ready for download at git.kernel.org. The best possible mitigation is suggested to be upgrading to the latest version.

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Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 6.18.0
• 6.18.1
• 6.18.2
• 6.18.3
• 6.18.4
• 6.18.5
• 6.18.6
• 6.18.7
• 6.18.8
• 6.18.9
• 6.18.10
• 6.18.11
• 6.18.12
• 6.18.13
• 6.18.14
• 6.18.15
• 6.18.16
• 6.18.17
• 6.18.18
• 6.18.19
• 6.18.20
• 6.18.21
• 6.18.22
• 6.18.23
• 6.18.24
• 6.18.25
• 6.18.26
• 6.18.27
• 6.18.28
• 6.18.29
• 7.0.0
• 7.0.1
• 7.0.2
• 7.0.3
• 7.0.4
• 7.0.5
• 7.0.6
• 7.1-rc1
• 7.1-rc2

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

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