CVE-2026-63996

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

ethtool: cmis: require exact CDB reply length

Malicious SFP module could respond with rpl_len longer than what cmis_cdb_process_reply() expected, leading to OOB writes. Malicious HW is a bit theoretical but some modules may just be buggy and/or the reads may occasionally get corrupted, so lets protect the kernel.

The existing check protects from short replies. We need to protect from long ones, too. All callers that pass a non-zero rpl_exp_len cast the reply payload to a fixed-layout struct and read fields at fixed offsets, with no version negotiation or short-reply handling:

• cmis_cdb_validate_password()
• cmis_cdb_module_features_get()
• cmis_fw_update_fw_mng_features_get()

so lets assume that responses longer than expected do not have to be handled gracefully here. Add a warning message to make the debug easier in case my understanding is wrong…

Note that page_data->length (argument of kmalloc) comes from last arg to ethtool_cmis_page_init() which is rpl_exp_len.

Note2 that AIs also like to point out overflows in args->req.payload itself (which is a fixed-size 120 B buffer, on the stack), but callers should be reading structs defined by the standard, so protecting from requests for more data than max seem like defensive programming.

Affected Software

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2f818cc98fd2c63a08239cb48995f6c3bfe9d9b3
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/4d42fb88ec61f2e98c33a9e3a2de371d5edbc6b1
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/6c3f999a9d1338c6c89a9ff4549eafe72bc2e7b1
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/eb5dcd740cd7fa27bc2caeff2d28ef28e93ff4d3