CVE-2026-98155
Description
A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's Qualcomm Cloud AI (qaic) driver. A compromised or malicious device could trigger a Denial of Service (DoS) or information disclosure by sending a malformed response message. Due to missing bounds checks during message processing, the driver may read beyond allocated memory buffers, leading to a kernel crash or an infinite loop.
Statement
A moderate severity flaw was found in the Linux kernel Qualcomm Cloud AI (qaic) accelerator driver. When processing an orphaned DBC deactivation response in resp_worker(), the message is walked without the bounds checks that decode_message() performs, so a malformed wire message sent by a compromised or faulty QAIC device can cause the kernel to read past the end of a slab allocation, resulting in a kernel panic or an infinite loop (denial of service). Because the out-of-bounds data read in the response worker is discarded and not returned to userspace, no reliable information disclosure path is established. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10.3 and 10.4 and Red Hat In-Vehicle OS 2.0 and 2.1 (kernel and kernel-ivos-qualcomm) are affected, and the fix is currently deferred to a future update of those streams. The residual risk of deferring the fix is limited: exploitation requires local access to a system with a QAIC accelerator device and a device or device firmware that sends a malformed response message, and the primary impact is denial of service of the local system. Earlier Red Hat Enterprise Linux versions and releases, including kernel-rt, and the Red Hat Enterprise Linux CoreOS images shipped with OpenShift Container Platform are not affected because the vulnerable code is not present in those kernels.
Mitigation
Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options do not meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base, or stability.
Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details
Info alert:Important note
CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).
The following CVSS metrics and score provided are preliminary and subject to review.
CVSS v3 Score Breakdown
| Red Hat | NVD | cve.org | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Score | 5.5 | 7.1 | N/A |
| Attack Vector | Local | Local | N/A |
| Attack Complexity | Low | Low | N/A |
| Privileges Required | Low | Low | N/A |
| User Interaction | None | None | N/A |
| Scope | Unchanged | Unchanged | N/A |
| Confidentiality | None | High | N/A |
| Integrity Impact | None | None | N/A |
| Availability Impact | High | High | N/A |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
NVD: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:H
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Confidentiality
Technical Impact: Read Memory
An attacker could get secret values such as cryptographic keys, PII, memory addresses, or other information that could be used in additional attacks.
Confidentiality
Technical Impact: Bypass Protection Mechanism
Out-of-bounds memory could contain memory addresses or other information that can be used to bypass ASLR and other protection mechanisms in order to improve the reliability of exploiting a separate weakness for code execution.
Availability
Technical Impact: DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart
An attacker could cause a segmentation fault or crash by causing memory to be read outside of the bounds of the buffer. This is especially likely when the code reads a variable amount of data and assumes that a sentinel exists to stop the read operation, such as a NUL in a string.
Other
Technical Impact: Varies by Context
The read operation could produce other undefined or unexpected results.
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