CVE-2025-68816

high

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net/mlx5: fw_tracer, Validate format string parameters Add validation for format string parameters in the firmware tracer to prevent potential security vulnerabilities and crashes from malformed format strings received from firmware. The firmware tracer receives format strings from the device firmware and uses them to format trace messages. Without proper validation, bad firmware could provide format strings with invalid format specifiers (e.g., %s, %p, %n) that could lead to crashes, or other undefined behavior. Add mlx5_tracer_validate_params() to validate that all format specifiers in trace strings are limited to safe integer/hex formats (%x, %d, %i, %u, %llx, %lx, etc.). Reject strings containing other format types that could be used to access arbitrary memory or cause crashes. Invalid format strings are added to the trace output for visibility with "BAD_FORMAT: " prefix.

References

https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b35966042d20b14e2d83330049f77deec5229749

https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/8c35c2448086870509ede43947845be0833251f0

https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/8ac688c0e430dab19f6a9b70df94b1f635612c1a

https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/45bd283b1d69e2c97cddcb9956f0e0261fc4efd7

https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/38ac688b52ef26a88f8bc4fe26d24fdd0ff91e5d

Details

Source: Mitre, NVD

Published: 2026-01-13

Updated: 2026-01-14

Risk Information

CVSS v2

Base Score: 6.4

Vector: CVSS2#AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:P/I:N/A:P

Severity: Medium

CVSS v3

Base Score: 7.1

Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H

Severity: High

EPSS

EPSS: 0.00018