Time-of-check Time-of-use (TOCTOU) Race Condition in Linux kernel - CVE-2026-97916
Published: September 28, 2026
Vulnerability identifier: #VU152559
CSH Severity: Low
CVSS v4: 2 [CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N]
CVE-ID: CVE-2026-97916
CWE-ID: CWE-367
Exploitation vector: Local access
Exploit availability:
No public exploit available
Vulnerability details
The vulnerability allows a local user to cause an out-of-bounds memory access.
The vulnerability exists due to a time-of-check to time-of-use race condition in fw_log_print_buffer() in the Intel VPU firmware log handling code when the NPU firmware modifies shared tracing log metadata after validation. A local user can cause the firmware-controlled log header size or log size values to change between validation and use to cause an out-of-bounds memory access.
Affected software
Linux kernel
How to mitigate CVE-2026-97916
Install security update from vendor's repository.
Linux kernel - update to 7.0 rc3