CVE-2025-68816

Summary

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

net/mlx5: fw_tracer, Validate format string parameters

Add validation for format string parameters in the firmware tracer to prevent potential security vulnerabilities and crashes from malformed format strings received from firmware.

The firmware tracer receives format strings from the device firmware and uses them to format trace messages. Without proper validation, bad firmware could provide format strings with invalid format specifiers (e.g., %s, %p, %n) that could lead to crashes, or other undefined behavior.

Add mlx5_tracer_validate_params() to validate that all format specifiers in trace strings are limited to safe integer/hex formats (%x, %d, %i, %u, %llx, %lx, etc.). Reject strings containing other format types that could be used to access arbitrary memory or cause crashes. Invalid format strings are added to the trace output for visibility with "BAD_FORMAT: " prefix.

Affected Software

VendorProductVersion RangeStatus
LinuxLinux70dd6fdb8987b14f7b6105f6be0617299e459398 < 95624b731c490a4b849844269193a233d6d556a0affected
LinuxLinux70dd6fdb8987b14f7b6105f6be0617299e459398 < 768d559f466cdd72849110a7ecd76a21d52dcfe3affected
LinuxLinux70dd6fdb8987b14f7b6105f6be0617299e459398 < 38ac688b52ef26a88f8bc4fe26d24fdd0ff91e5daffected
LinuxLinux70dd6fdb8987b14f7b6105f6be0617299e459398 < 8ac688c0e430dab19f6a9b70df94b1f635612c1aaffected
LinuxLinux70dd6fdb8987b14f7b6105f6be0617299e459398 < 45bd283b1d69e2c97cddcb9956f0e0261fc4efd7affected
LinuxLinux70dd6fdb8987b14f7b6105f6be0617299e459398 < 8c35c2448086870509ede43947845be0833251f0affected
LinuxLinux70dd6fdb8987b14f7b6105f6be0617299e459398 < b35966042d20b14e2d83330049f77deec5229749affected
LinuxLinux4.19affected
LinuxLinux0 < 4.19unaffected
LinuxLinux5.10.248 <= 5.10.*unaffected
LinuxLinux5.15.198 <= 5.15.*unaffected
LinuxLinux6.1.160 <= 6.1.*unaffected
LinuxLinux6.6.120 <= 6.6.*unaffected
LinuxLinux6.12.64 <= 6.12.*unaffected
LinuxLinux6.18.3 <= 6.18.*unaffected
LinuxLinux6.19 <= *unaffected

Weaknesses

ADP Enrichment

CISA ADP Vulnrichment

  • SSVC:
  • Exploitation: none
    • Automatable: no
    • Technical Impact: partial

References