Vulnerability in Linux
CVE-2026-74751
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: riscv: lib: Fix ZBB strnlen reading past count boundary The ZBB-optimized strnlen loop loads one word ahead before checking the aligned boundary: REG_L t1, SZREG(t0) // load next word addi t0, t0, SZREG // advance orc.b t1, t1 bgeu t0, t4, 4f // boundary check AFTER load where t4 = (s + count) & -SZREG. When s is aligned and count is a multiple of SZREG, t4 equals s + count and the loop loads a full word starting at exactly s + count. If s + count falls on a page boundary with the next page unmapped, this faults. Fix by computing the aligned boundary from the last valid byte (s + count - 1) instead of s + count. This makes the loop stop at the word containing the last valid byte rather than potentially loading the word after it. The count == 0 case is already handled by the beqz early exit. Also add a pre-loop guard (bgeu t0, t4) for the case where all valid bytes fit within the first word. With the adjusted boundary, t4 can equal t0, and entering the loop with stale register state from the first-word processing would produce incorrect results. The final minu clamp ensures the result is still correct when the last loaded word extends past s + count - 1 within the same aligned word.
Published · last modified .
CVSS v3 metric
CVSS v3 base score 9.4 (Critical). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:L/A:H.
EPSS exploit prediction
EPSS: 0.005 (37.9th percentile), scored .
Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 38th percentile — 37.9% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.
EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.003 · newest: 0.005 · change: +0.001
Affected products
- Linux — versions 7.1
References
Frequently asked questions
- What is CVE-2026-74751?
- CVE-2026-74751 is a critical-severity vulnerability in Linux. CVSS score: 9.4/10. Published 2026-08-26.
- How severe is CVE-2026-74751?
- Critical severity. CVSS v3 base score is 9.4 out of 10.