CVE-2026-53371 RDMA/ionic: bound node_desc sysfs read with %.64s

Medium 5.5 Published 19 Jul 2026 Updated 19 Jul 2026

A missing null-termination check in the Linux kernel RDMA ionic driver allows local attackers to read adjacent kernel memory via sysfs.

Exploited in the wild: Not known
Login needed: Any signed-in user
Attackable: Local or same network only
Victim action needed: Not needed
Fix: Available

What is CVE-2026-53371?

CVE-2026-53371 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 19 Jul 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

Official description

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

RDMA/ionic: bound node_desc sysfs read with %.64s

node_desc[64] in struct ib_device is not guaranteed to be NUL- terminated. The core IB sysfs handler uses "%.64s" for exactly this reason (drivers/infiniband/core/sysfs.c:1307), since node_desc_store() performs a raw memcpy of up to IB_DEVICE_NODE_DESC_MAX bytes with no NUL termination:

memcpy(desc.node_desc, buf, min_t(int, count, IB_DEVICE_NODE_DESC_MAX));

If exactly 64 bytes are written via the node_desc sysfs file, the array contains no NUL byte. The ionic hca_type_show() handler uses unbounded "%s" and will read past the end of node_desc into adjacent fields of struct ib_device until it encounters a NUL.

ionic supports IB_DEVICE_MODIFY_NODE_DESC, so this is triggerable by userspace.

Match the core handler and bound the format specifier.

Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-53371?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2026-53371?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Is CVE-2026-53371 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-53371 in the wild and no public exploit code.

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

Also known as BELL-CVE-2026-53371, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-53371, GHSA-wcp7-j68j-j6mv, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-53371.