CVE-2026-64456
HIGHCVE-2026-64456 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.7) remote code execution vulnerability in Kernel. O3 Security confirms whether CVE-2026-64456 is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
hwrng: virtio: clamp device-reported used.len at copy_data()
Blast Radius
KernelReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Linux packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
hwrng: virtio: clamp device-reported used.len at copy_data()
random_recv_done() stores the device-reported used.len directly into vi->data_avail. copy_data() then indexes vi->data[] using vi->data_idx (advanced by previous copy_data() calls) and issues a memcpy() without re-validating either value against the posted buffer size sizeof(vi->data) (SMP_CACHE_BYTES bytes, typically 32 or 64).
A malicious or buggy virtio-rng backend can set used.len beyond sizeof(vi->data), steering the memcpy() past the end of the inline array into adjacent kmalloc-1k slab bytes. hwrng_fillfn() mixes those bytes into the guest RNG, and guest root can also observe them directly via /dev/hwrng.
Concrete impact is inside the guest:
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Memory-safety / hardening: any virtio-rng backend that over-reports used.len causes the driver to read past vi->data into unrelated slab contents. hwrng_fillfn() is a kernel thread that runs as soon as the device is probed; no guest userspace interaction is required to first-trigger the OOB.
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Cross-boundary leak (confidential-compute threat model): a malicious hypervisor cooperating with a malicious or compromised guest root userspace can use /dev/hwrng as a leak channel for guest-kernel heap data. The host sets a large used.len, guest root reads /dev/hwrng, and the returned bytes contain guest kernel slab contents that were adjacent to vi->data. In practice, confidential-compute guests (SEV-SNP, TDX) usually disable virtio-rng entirely, so this path is narrow, but the fix is still worth carrying because the underlying memory-safety bug contaminates the guest RNG on any host.
KASAN confirms the OOB on a 7.1-rc4 guest whose virtio-rng backend has been patched to report used.len = 0x10000:
BUG: KASAN: slab-out-of-bounds in virtio_read+0x394/0x5d0 Read of size 64 at addr ffff88800ae0ba20 by task hwrng/52 Call Trace: __asan_memcpy+0x23/0x60 virtio_read+0x394/0x5d0 hwrng_fillfn+0xb2/0x470 kthread+0x2cc/0x3a0 Allocated by task 1: probe_common+0xa5/0x660 virtio_dev_probe+0x549/0xbc0 The buggy address belongs to the object at ffff88800ae0b800 which belongs to the cache kmalloc-1k of size 1024 The buggy address is located 0 bytes to the right of allocated 544-byte region [ffff88800ae0b800, ffff88800ae0ba20)
Same class of bug as commit c04db81cd028 ("net/9p: Fix buffer overflow in USB transport layer"), which hardened usb9pfs_rx_complete() against unchecked device-reported length in the USB 9p transport.
With the clamp at point of use and array_index_nospec() in place, the same harness boots cleanly: copy_data() returns zero for the bogus report, the device-supplied bytes after data_idx are discarded, and the driver issues a fresh request.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐧Linux | Kernel | ≥ 2.6.26&&< 5.10.261 | 5.10.261 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for Kernel. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update Kernel to 5.10.261 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-64456 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 pinpoints whether CVE-2026-64456 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.
Tailored to CVE-2026-64456. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-64456 in your dependencies?
O3 detects CVE-2026-64456 across Linux dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.