VulnerabilityPublished 19 Jul 2026Updated 17 Aug 2026

CVE-2026-64149: Linux kernel · dma-mapping: move dma_map_resource() sanity check into debug code

Source GCVE Database

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 5.5 Medium.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 13:47 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

5.5Medium

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 5% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Attack Vector: Local
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: None
Integrity: None
Availability: High

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Local: The vulnerable component is not bound to the network stack and the attacker’s path is via read/write/execute capabilities. Either: the attacker exploits the vulnerability by accessing the target system locally (e.g., keyboard, console), or remotely (e.g., SSH); or the attacker relies on User Interaction by another person to perform actions required to exploit the vulnerability (e.g., tricking a legitimate user into opening a malicious document).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: Low: The attacker is authorized with (i.e., requires) privileges that provide basic user capabilities that could normally affect only settings and files owned by a user. Alternatively, an attacker with Low privileges may have the ability to cause an impact only to non-sensitive resources.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
Confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the impacted component.
Integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the impacted component.
Availability: High: There is total loss of availability, resulting in the attacker being able to fully deny access to resources in the impacted component; this loss is either sustained (while the attacker continues to deliver the attack) or persistent (the condition persists even after the attack has completed). Alternatively, the attacker has the ability to deny some availability, but the loss of availability presents a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component (e.g., the attacker cannot disrupt existing connections, but can prevent new connections; the attacker can repeatedly exploit a vulnerability that, in each instance of a successful attack, leaks a only small amount of memory, but after repeated exploitation causes a service to become completely unavailable).

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 19 Jul 2026
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 26 Oct 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

ghsa-pxq7-6qx3-6gp9

What to do

AI-suggested

This vulnerability has been resolved in the Linux kernel by moving the sanity check into debug code and improving the validation logic. Users should update to a Linux kernel version that includes this fix. Since this is a kernel-level fix, applying the official kernel update from the vendor or distribution is the recommended remediation. Patch status is not explicitly stated here; check the vendor or Linux kernel mailing lists for the specific fixed kernel version.

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: dma-mapping: move dma_map_resource() sanity check into debug code dma_map_resource() uses pfn_valid() to ensure the range is not RAM. However, pfn_valid() only checks for availability of the memory map for a PFN but it does not ensure that the PFN is actually backed by RAM. On ARM64 with SPARSEMEM (128MB section granularity), MMIO addresses that share a section with RAM will falsely trigger the WARN_ON_ONCE and cause dma_map_resource() to return DMA_MAPPING_ERROR. This causes a WARNING on Raspberry Pi 4 during spi_bcm2835 probe because the SPI FIFO register (0xfe204004) falls in the same sparsemem section as the end of RAM (0xf8000000-0xfbffffff), both in section 31 (0xf8000000-0xffffffff). Move the sanity check from dma_map_resource() into debug_dma_map_phys() and replace the unreliable pfn_valid() with pfn_valid() && !PageReserved(), which correctly identifies actual usable RAM without false positives for MMIO regions that happen to have struct pages. Since dma_map_resource() is dma_map_phys(DMA_ATTR_MMIO), the check applies equally to both APIs. Any non-reserved page represents kernel memory to a sufficient degree that using DMA_ATTR_MMIO on it is almost certainly wrong and risks breaking coherency on non-coherent platforms. ZONE_DEVICE pages used for PCI P2P DMA (MEMORY_DEVICE_PCI_P2PDMA) have PageReserved set, so they will not trigger a false positive. The check no longer blocks the mapping and uses err_printk() to integrate with dma-debug filtering.

Impact

The vulnerability caused false warnings and DMA mapping errors on affected ARM64 systems with SPARSEMEM, potentially disrupting device driver initialization (e.g., SPI on Raspberry Pi 4). It did not directly allow unauthorized access or code execution but could lead to functional issues or degraded device operation due to incorrect DMA mapping behavior.

Summary

The Linux kernel vulnerability CVE-2026-64149 involved dma_map_resource() using pfn_valid() alone to verify that a memory range was not RAM before mapping it for DMA. On ARM64 systems with SPARSEMEM, this caused false positives for MMIO addresses sharing sections with RAM, triggering warnings and mapping errors, notably on Raspberry Pi 4 during SPI driver initialization. The fix moves the sanity check into debug_dma_map_phys() and replaces pfn_valid() with pfn_valid() && !PageReserved(), which accurately identifies usable RAM and avoids false positives for MMIO regions. This change prevents incorrect blocking of DMA mappings and integrates error reporting with dma-debug filtering.

References

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