CVE-2026-81013: Linux

EPSS: 0.2% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: platform/x86: hp-bioscfg: fix heap OOB read on empty password write validate_password_input() computes length = strlen(buf) and then checks buf[length - 1] to strip a trailing newline, without checking that length is nonzero first. Writing an empty string (a bare '\n') to current_password or new_password gives length == 0, and buf[length - 1] reads buf[-1], one byte before the heap allocation holding the copied input. KASAN confirms this directly: BUG: KASAN: slab-out-of-bounds in store_password_instance.constprop.0+0x223/0x2a0 [hp_bioscfg] Read of size 1 at addr ffff88811bd8da9f by task sh/13740 ... store_password_instance.constprop.0+0x223/0x2a0 [hp_bioscfg] current_password_store+0x14/0x20 [hp_bioscfg] ... The buggy address is located 23 bytes to the right of allocated 8-byte region [ffff88811bd8da80, ffff88811bd8da88) Reproduced identically via new_password_store. Execution continues past the bad read (the garbage byte only affects whether "length" is decremented by one), so the write completes and returns success; this is a pure information read past the buffer, not a crash, but it is still an out-of-bounds access KASAN correctly flags. Fix by only checking buf[length - 1] when length is nonzero.

Affected products

• Linux Linux: from 6.6, before 6.6.157 (fixed in 6.6.157); from 6.7, before 6.12.109 (fixed in 6.12.109); from 6.13, before 6.18.50 (fixed in 6.18.50); from 6.19, before 7.2.4 (fixed in 7.2.4)

Published 2026-09-11. Last modified 2026-09-14.