CVE-2026-89722 PCI/sysfs: Fix out-of-bounds read in pci_write_legacy_io()
A local root user can trigger an out-of-bounds read in the Linux kernel PCI sysfs interface, potentially leaking memory or causing a crash.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- An administrator
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2026-89722?
CVE-2026-89722 is a memory corruption vulnerability in Linux, published on 11 Sep 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:
PCI/sysfs: Fix out-of-bounds read in pci_write_legacy_io()
pci_write_legacy_io() loads 4 bytes from the kernfs write buffer regardless of how many bytes userspace wrote:
if (count != 1 && count != 2 && count != 4) return -EINVAL;
return pci_legacy_write(bus, off, *(u32 *)buf, count);
kernfs_fop_write_iter() allocates the buffer with kmalloc(len + 1), so a 1-byte write to the legacy_io sysfs file allocates 2 bytes and the unconditional u32 load reads up to 2 bytes past the end of the allocation, which KASAN reports as a slab-out-of-bounds read. Similarly, a 2-byte write overreads by 1 byte.
Thus, read only the number of bytes requested using get_unaligned_le16() and get_unaligned_le32() for the 2 and 4 byte cases, interpreting the buffer as little-endian to match the byte ordering of PCI I/O port space.
The PowerPC implementation previously compensated for the generic code's native-endian 32-bit load by shifting the value into place for the 1 and 2 byte cases. The shifts were only correct on big-endian kernels.
On little-endian PowerPC (POWER8 and later), they extracted the wrong bytes, so a 1-byte write wrote an out-of-bounds byte instead of the requested value. On big-endian, the native load also caused out_le16() and out_le32() to reverse the user's bytes on the wire for 2 and 4 byte writes. The little-endian helpers resolve both issues, so the shifts are removed.
No changes are needed for the Alpha platform.
The legacy_io file is root-only and exists only on Alpha and PowerPC, the two architectures that define HAVE_PCI_LEGACY.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-89722?
How do I fix CVE-2026-89722?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Upgrade to the fixed version. Memory-safe languages, compiler hardening and fuzzing prevent most new cases. More about Memory corruption.
Is CVE-2026-89722 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-89722 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as AZL-100895, BELL-CVE-2026-89722, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-89722, GHSA-chvm-2qwm-x2xc, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-89722.