CVE-2026-64318: partitions: aix: bound the pp_count scan to the ppe array

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2026-64318 is a high (CVSS 7.1) vulnerability in linux. EPSS estimates a 0.16% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 5.6% of scored vulnerabilities.

Timeline

1. 25-07-2026
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 17-08-2026
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: partitions: aix: bound the pp_count scan to the ppe array aix_partition() reads the physical volume descriptor into a fixed-size struct pvd and then scans its physical-partition-extent array: int numpps = be16_to_cpu(pvd->pp_count); ... for (i = 0; i < numpps; i += 1) { struct ppe *p = pvd->ppe + i; ... lp_ix = be16_to_cpu(p->lp_ix); pvd points at a single kmalloc()'d struct pvd whose ppe[] member holds a fixed ARRAY_SIZE(pvd->ppe) (1016) entries, but the loop runs up to the on-disk pp_count. pp_count is an unvalidated __be16 read straight from the descriptor, so a crafted AIX image with pp_count larger than 1016 drives the loop to read pvd->ppe[i] past the end of the allocation (up to 65535 entries, ~2 MB out of bounds). The partition scan runs without mounting anything, when a block device with a crafted AIX/IBM partition table appears (an attacker-supplied image attached with losetup -P, or a device auto-scanned by udev), via msdos_partition() -> aix_partition(). Clamp the scan to the number of entries the ppe[] array can hold.

No weakness data has been published for this record.