What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-80791: nvmet-auth: zero the AUTH_RECEIVE response buffer

• Severity: unknown
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2026-09-04 · updated 2026-10-19

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: nvmet-auth: zero the AUTH_RECEIVE response buffer nvmet_execute_auth_receive() allocates the response buffer with kmalloc() sized by the host-supplied AUTH_RECEIVE allocation length, but the DH-HMAC-CHAP builders write only a fixed-size message into it. The full allocation length is then copied to the wire by nvmet_copy_to_sgl(), so a remote initiator receives the bytes past the built message -- up to nearly a page of uninitialized slab -- during the pre-authentication handshake. Allocate the buffer with kzalloc() so the unwritten tail is zeroed before it is sent; conforming responses are unaffected.

Affected products

• Linux kernel: 6.0 — fixed in 7.3

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 7.3. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/1d6837d98bf966a041af65de5f78de7409ff83bc
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2dcc9226203da7275a9c29d20007da278d73d5e9
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/3ddcfb013322aa37eaa7a0d344b73079c38dfa21
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/447b668faa14710f611e714031e3739ac3ec3a4f
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/8f6363c8d54dde95982f0ab45e77cf57ec0efd62
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b26189d28442183a8b5edb754f4a6918f77ca84e
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/dfcf013f77709ebdb282767edc2795a37cab5b57

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