Linux Kernel up to 6.18.35/7.0.12 iommu iommu_dma_iova_link_swiotlb buffer overflow

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability categorized as critical has been discovered in Linux Kernel up to 6.18.35/7.0.12. This issue affects the function iommu_dma_iova_link_swiotlb of the component iommu. Executing a manipulation can lead to buffer overflow. This vulnerability is handled as CVE-2026-53164. There is not any exploit available. It is advisable to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Linux Kernel up to 6.18.35/7.0.12. It has been declared as critical. This vulnerability affects the function iommu_dma_iova_link_swiotlb of the component iommu. 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. CVE summarizes:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: iommu/dma: Do not try to iommu_map a 0 length region in swiotlb iommu_dma_iova_link_swiotlb() processes a mapping that is unaligned in three parts, the head, middle and trailer. If the middle is empty because there are no aligned pages it will call down to iommu_map() with a 0 size which the iommupt implementation will fail as illegal. It then tries to do an error unwind and starts from the wrong spot corrupting the mapping so the eventual destruction triggers a WARN_ON. Check for 0 length and avoid mapping and use offset not 0 as the starting point to unlink. This is frequently triggered by using some kinds of thunderbolt NVMe drives that trigger forced SWIOTLB for unaligned memory. NVMe seems to pass in oddly aligned buffers for the passthrough commands from smartctl that hit this condition.

The advisory is shared for download at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability was named CVE-2026-53164 since 06/09/2026. The exploitation appears to be easy. There are known technical details, but no exploit is available. The current price for an exploit might be approx. USD $5k-$25k (estimation calculated on 06/25/2026).

Upgrading to version 6.18.36 or 7.0.13 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch ab61c990a87d084f5565ee70340543e3a5394697/b16f8d40bac9ced838d24c9842707af9ecae92e2/6ec91df8aff77e2e8fe3179c1f3fc15b43a40ba3 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
• 6.18.30
• 6.18.31
• 6.18.32
• 6.18.33
• 6.18.34
• 6.18.35
• 7.0.0
• 7.0.1
• 7.0.2
• 7.0.3
• 7.0.4
• 7.0.5
• 7.0.6
• 7.0.7
• 7.0.8
• 7.0.9
• 7.0.10
• 7.0.11
• 7.0.12

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

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