CVE-2026-74551: hwmon: (nzxt-smart2) DMA-align output buffer

Severity: high (CVSS 7.8 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.1% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2026-08-15 · updated 2026-08-19

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: hwmon: (nzxt-smart2) DMA-align output buffer Sashiko reports: When send_output_report() calls hid_hw_output_report(), the underlying USB HID core calls usb_interrupt_msg() which maps this buffer directly for DMA. When the DMA mapping flushes or invalidates the cacheline, it will corrupt the adjacent variables (mutex, update_interval) that were modified concurrently by the CPU. This causes memory corruption due to cacheline sharing on non-coherent CPU architectures (such as ARM or MIPS). The DMA API debugging tool (CONFIG_DMA_API_DEBUG) will trigger runtime warnings for this violation. Any operation that triggers send_output_report() (like setting a fan speed or updating the interval) causes the USB DMA mapping. On systems with non-coherent caches, this structural bug causes immediate and deterministic memory corruption. Align the output buffer to ARCH_DMA_MINALIGN to fix the problem.

Affected products

Linux kernel: 5.17 — fixed in 7.2

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 7.2. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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