CVE-2026-90136: platform/x86/amd/hsmp: Reject negative power cap writes in hwmon

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: 2026-09-17 · updated 2026-10-19

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: platform/x86/amd/hsmp: Reject negative power cap writes in hwmon hsmp_hwmon_write() takes the user-supplied hwmon value as a signed long and assigns "val / MICROWATT_PER_MILLIWATT" to msg.args[0], which is a __u32. MICROWATT_PER_MILLIWATT is an unsigned long, so a negative write to power1_cap (e.g. "echo -1 > power1_cap") is first converted to a huge unsigned value by the division and then stored into the u32 argument. As a result a nonsensical, multi-gigawatt socket power limit is sent to the SMU via HSMP_SET_SOCKET_POWER_LIMIT instead of the write being rejected. Reject negative values with -EINVAL before the conversion. Tested with HSMP enabled: CAP=$(dirname $(grep -l amd_hsmp_hwmon \ /sys/class/hwmon/hwmon*/name | head -1))/power1_cap # negative write echo -1000000 > $CAP ; echo "ret=$?" # valid positive write must still work echo 400000000 > $CAP ; echo "ret=$?" Before: # echo -1000000 > $CAP ; echo "ret=$?" ret=0 <- accepted; bogus limit sent to SMU # echo 400000000 > $CAP ; echo "ret=$?" ret=0 After: # echo -1000000 > $CAP ; echo "ret=$?" bash: echo: write error: Invalid argument ret=1 <- rejected with -EINVAL # echo 400000000 > $CAP ; echo "ret=$?" ret=0 <- valid write still works

Affected products

Linux kernel: 6.16 — fixed in 7.3

How to fix

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

References

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