CVE-2025-68816

net/mlx5: fw_tracer, Validate format string parameters

State
Published
Severity
Not scored
Published
Jan 13, 2026
Updated
Oct 19, 2026
Reserved
Dec 24, 2025

Read the record on cve.org

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.

Scores

The record has no CVSS score.

Weaknesses

  • CWE-134 Use of Externally-Controlled Format String

Affected Products

ProductVersions
LinuxLinux
  • 70dd6fdb8987b14f7b6105f6be0617299e459398 to before 95624b731c490a4b849844269193a233d6d556a0Affected
  • 70dd6fdb8987b14f7b6105f6be0617299e459398 to before 768d559f466cdd72849110a7ecd76a21d52dcfe3Affected
  • 70dd6fdb8987b14f7b6105f6be0617299e459398 to before 38ac688b52ef26a88f8bc4fe26d24fdd0ff91e5dAffected
  • 70dd6fdb8987b14f7b6105f6be0617299e459398 to before 8ac688c0e430dab19f6a9b70df94b1f635612c1aAffected
  • 70dd6fdb8987b14f7b6105f6be0617299e459398 to before 45bd283b1d69e2c97cddcb9956f0e0261fc4efd7Affected
  • 70dd6fdb8987b14f7b6105f6be0617299e459398 to before 8c35c2448086870509ede43947845be0833251f0Affected
  • 70dd6fdb8987b14f7b6105f6be0617299e459398 to before b35966042d20b14e2d83330049f77deec5229749Affected
LinuxLinux
  • 4.19Affected
  • before 4.19Not affected
  • 5.10.248 through 5.10.*Not affected
  • 5.15.198 through 5.15.*Not affected
  • 6.1.160 through 6.1.*Not affected
  • 6.6.120 through 6.6.*Not affected
  • 6.12.64 through 6.12.*Not affected
  • 6.18.3 through 6.18.*Not affected
  • 6.19 and laterNot affected

References

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