CVE-2021-46984: kyber: fix out of bounds access when preempted
Vulnerability summary
CVE-2021-46984 is a high (CVSS 7.8) Improper Validation of Array Index vulnerability in linux. EPSS estimates a 0.26% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 17.5% of scored vulnerabilities.
Not severe (CVSS 7.8, local access); no exploitation reported by the 5 checked sources
Source freshness unavailable
How is this decided?Advisory lineage
Upstream 0 · Downstream 6 · Related 4Timeline
- 28-02-2024PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
- 05-08-2026Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: kyber: fix out of bounds access when preempted __blk_mq_sched_bio_merge() gets the ctx and hctx for the current CPU and passes the hctx to ->bio_merge(). kyber_bio_merge() then gets the ctx for the current CPU again and uses that to get the corresponding Kyber context in the passed hctx. However, the thread may be preempted between the two calls to blk_mq_get_ctx(), and the ctx returned the second time may no longer correspond to the passed hctx. This "works" accidentally most of the time, but it can cause us to read garbage if the second ctx came from an hctx with more ctx's than the first one (i.e., if ctx->index_hw[hctx->type] > hctx->nr_ctx). This manifested as this UBSAN array index out of bounds error reported by Jakub: UBSAN: array-index-out-of-bounds in ../kernel/locking/qspinlock.c:130:9 index 13106 is out of range for type 'long unsigned int [128]' Call Trace: dump_stack+0xa4/0xe5 ubsan_epilogue+0x5/0x40 __ubsan_handle_out_of_bounds.cold.13+0x2a/0x34 queued_spin_lock_slowpath+0x476/0x480 do_raw_spin_lock+0x1c2/0x1d0 kyber_bio_merge+0x112/0x180 blk_mq_submit_bio+0x1f5/0x1100 submit_bio_noacct+0x7b0/0x870 submit_bio+0xc2/0x3a0 btrfs_map_bio+0x4f0/0x9d0 btrfs_submit_data_bio+0x24e/0x310 submit_one_bio+0x7f/0xb0 submit_extent_page+0xc4/0x440 __extent_writepage_io+0x2b8/0x5e0 __extent_writepage+0x28d/0x6e0 extent_write_cache_pages+0x4d7/0x7a0 extent_writepages+0xa2/0x110 do_writepages+0x8f/0x180 __writeback_single_inode+0x99/0x7f0 writeback_sb_inodes+0x34e/0x790 __writeback_inodes_wb+0x9e/0x120 wb_writeback+0x4d2/0x660 wb_workfn+0x64d/0xa10 process_one_work+0x53a/0xa80 worker_thread+0x69/0x5b0 kthread+0x20b/0x240 ret_from_fork+0x1f/0x30 Only Kyber uses the hctx, so fix it by passing the request_queue to ->bio_merge() instead. BFQ and mq-deadline just use that, and Kyber can map the queues itself to avoid the mismatch.
CVSS metrics
5 scores · 4 sources · 2 versions- OSV · UbuntuEcosystem advisory · calculated7.8HighCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- OSV · DebianEcosystem advisory · calculated7.8HighCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- NVDNIST7.8HighCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS trend
Probability
0.26%
Chance of exploitation in the next 30 days
Percentile
18%
Versus all other CVEs
30-day change
No change 0.00 pp
From 0.26% on 04-10-2026
Known exploited
Compare KEV catalogsNot in the CISA KEV catalog.
Not in the ENISA CNW catalog.
Not in the CIRCL catalog.
Public exploits
0 foundNo public exploits indexed.
Weaknesses
CWE · root causeAffected systems
Known conditions: local access, low-privilege account, no user interaction (CVSS vector). Other conditions: not stated in public data.
Ubuntu82 products
- linux< 5.4.0-80.90
- linux-allwinner-5.19All versions (No fix recorded)
- linux-aws< 5.4.0-1054.57
- linux-aws-5.0All versions (No fix recorded)
- linux-aws-5.11All versions (No fix recorded)
Linux2 products
- linux≥ a6088845c2bf754d6cb2572b484180680b037804, < 0b6b4b90b74c27bea968c214d820ba4254b903a5 | ≥ a6088845c2bf754d6cb2572b484180680b037804, < 54dbe2d2c1fcabf650c7a8b747601da355cd7f9f | ≥ a6088845c2bf754d6cb2572b484180680b037804, < a287cd84e047045f5a4d4da793414e848de627c6 | ≥ a6088845c2bf754d6cb2572b484180680b037804, < 2ef3c76540c49167a0bc3d5f80d00fd1fc4586df | ≥ a6088845c2bf754d6cb2572b484180680b037804, < efed9a3337e341bd0989161b97453b52567bc59d | 4.18
- linux_kernel≥ 4.18, < 5.4.120 | ≥ 5.5, < 5.10.38 | ≥ 5.11, < 5.11.22 | ≥ 5.12, < 5.12.5 | 5.13:rc1
Debian1 product
- linux< 5.10.38-1
3 vendors · 85 products