CVE-2026-98386
Description
A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's qla2xxx storage driver. When preparing request queues for specific storage adapters, the driver improperly uses standard memory operations instead of dedicated device input/output (I/O) functions to zero memory. On certain processor architectures, such as ARM64, this can execute instructions that are invalid for device memory. Consequently, a local user initiating storage operations could trigger a kernel abort, causing the system to crash and leading to a Denial of Service (DoS).
Statement
A low impact denial of service flaw was found in the Linux kernel's qla2xxx Fibre Channel driver. In __qla2x00_alloc_iocbs(), the request ring slot for QLAFX00 adapters resides in ioremapped device I/O memory, but was cleared with a plain memset() instead of the dedicated memset_io() accessor used elsewhere on this ring. On architectures such as ARM64, a regular memset() may emit unaligned or block-zeroing instructions (for example DC ZVA) that are invalid for Device memory, resulting in a synchronous external abort that crashes the kernel. A local user able to initiate storage operations through the affected adapter could use this flaw to cause a kernel crash and denial of service; there is no impact to confidentiality or integrity. Exploitation depends on an uncommon configuration, specifically an ARM64 host equipped with a QLAFX00 Fibre Channel adapter whose compiler-generated memset() emits instructions invalid for Device memory, which is why the flaw is rated low impact even though the Red Hat CVSS:3.1 base score is 5.5 (AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H). The affected Red Hat products are the Red Hat Enterprise Linux kernel and kernel-rt, the Red Hat In-Vehicle OS kernels, and the OpenShift Container Platform RHEL CoreOS kernels. Because of the low impact and the narrow hardware and architecture configuration required to trigger the flaw, fixes for these products have been deferred to a future update; the residual risk is limited to a local kernel crash (denial of service) on hosts that combine an affected architecture with a QLAFX00 adapter. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 is out of support scope and is not scheduled to be fixed.
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 | N/A | N/A |
| Attack Vector | Local | N/A | N/A |
| Attack Complexity | Low | N/A | N/A |
| Privileges Required | Low | N/A | N/A |
| User Interaction | None | N/A | N/A |
| Scope | Unchanged | N/A | N/A |
| Confidentiality | None | N/A | N/A |
| Integrity Impact | None | N/A | N/A |
| Availability Impact | High | N/A | N/A |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Other
Technical Impact: Quality Degradation; Varies by Context
The use of inconsistent implementations can cause changes in behavior when the code is ported or built under a different environment than the programmer expects, which can lead to security problems in some cases.
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