# CVE-2026-64456: hwrng: virtio: clamp device-reported used.len at copy_data()

> A malicious virtio-rng backend can trigger an out-of-bounds read in the Linux kernel, leaking heap memory to the guest or causing a crash.

- **Severity:** High 7.7 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 25 Jul 2026
- **Updated:** 19 Oct 2026
- **Also known as:** AZL-93866, BELL-CVE-2026-64456, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-64456, GHSA-7vrc-rff8-p548, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-12-CVE-2026-64456, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2204-CVE-2026-64456, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-64456

## What is CVE-2026-64456?

CVE-2026-64456 is a high-severity memory corruption vulnerability in Linux, published on 25 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:

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:

 - 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.

 - 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.

Weakness: CWE-125 (Out-of-bounds Read)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-64456?


## How do I fix CVE-2026-64456?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2026-64456 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-64456 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2026-64456 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-64456 is a high-severity memory corruption vulnerability in Linux, published on 25 Jul 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-64456 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Linux. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-64456/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-64456/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-64456
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-64456
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-64456

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-64456/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.