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High7.0Vendor: MediumRed Hat Linux

High [CVE-2026-63996] require exact CDB reply length

This high-severity Red Hat Linux advisory covers CVE-2026-63996 affecting Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9, Red Hat package: kernel-rt.

CVE-2026-63996 Published Jul 19, 2026Updated by vendor Jul 19, 2026
Affected products & platforms
Red Hat LinuxLinux Kernel
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Summary

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 let's 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 let's 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 versions

No affected-version range was extracted from the source record. The vendor advisory is authoritative — check it before change work.

Official advisory · medium-confidence parse· fetched 6 days ago·verify at source

Fixed versions

No fixed release is recorded yet. That does not prove no patch exists — confirm against the vendor advisory.

Official advisory · medium-confidence parse· fetched 6 days ago·verify at source

Mitigation

The source record does not include mitigation steps. That is not a statement that no fix exists — read the vendor advisory below for the authoritative guidance.

Official advisory · medium-confidence parse· fetched 6 days ago·verify at source

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