# CVE-2026-68229: media: cedrus: skip invalid H.264 reference list entries

> A local attacker can trigger out-of-bounds reads in the Cedrus H.264 driver by providing malformed reference list entries, potentially causing crashes or information disclosure.

- **Severity:** High 7.1 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:H`)
- **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:** Yes
- **Published:** 10 Aug 2026
- **Updated:** 19 Aug 2026
- **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2026-68229, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-68229, GHSA-59f3-f666-rhr8, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-68229

## What is CVE-2026-68229?

CVE-2026-68229 is a high-severity memory corruption vulnerability in Linux, published on 10 Aug 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:

media: cedrus: skip invalid H.264 reference list entries

Cedrus consumes H.264 ref_pic_list0/ref_pic_list1 entries from the
stateless slice control and later uses their indices to look up
decode->dpb[] in _cedrus_write_ref_list().

Rejecting such controls in cedrus_try_ctrl() would break existing
userspace, since stateless H.264 reference lists may legitimately carry
out-of-range indices for missing references. Instead, guard the actual
DPB lookup in Cedrus and skip entries whose indices do not fit the fixed
V4L2_H264_NUM_DPB_ENTRIES array.

This keeps the fix local to the driver use site and avoids out-of-bounds
reads from malformed or unsupported reference list entries.

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-68229?


## How do I fix CVE-2026-68229?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2026-68229 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-68229 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2026-68229 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-68229 is a high-severity memory corruption vulnerability in Linux, published on 10 Aug 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-2026-68229 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-2026-68229/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-68229/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-68229
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-68229
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-68229

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-68229/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.