CVE-2026-74278: ALSA: seq: Fix kernel heap address leak in bounce_error_event()

CVE-2026-74278: ALSA: seq: Fix kernel heap address leak in bounce_error_event()

[Greg Kroah-Hartman]

From: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@kernel.org>

Description
===========

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

ALSA: seq: Fix kernel heap address leak in bounce_error_event()

The comment above bounce_error_event() documents that user clients
should receive SNDRV_SEQ_EVENT_BOUNCE with the original event embedded
as variable-length data, while kernel clients should receive
SNDRV_SEQ_EVENT_KERNEL_ERROR with a quoted kernel pointer.

However, the implementation unconditionally uses
SNDRV_SEQ_EVENT_KERNEL_ERROR with data.quote.event set to the raw
struct snd_seq_event pointer for all clients.  When a bounce error
event is delivered to a USER_CLIENT via snd_seq_read(), the kernel
heap address in data.quote.event is exposed to userspace through
copy_to_user() in the fixed-length branch.

This is a distinct leak path from the one addressed by commit
705dd6dcbc0e ("ALSA: seq: Clear variable event pointer on read"),
which sanitizes data.ext.ptr in the variable-length branch of
snd_seq_read().  The bounce_error_event() leak uses fixed-length
events that take the else branch where no sanitization occurs.

Differentiate the bounce event by client type.  For USER_CLIENT,
send SNDRV_SEQ_EVENT_BOUNCE with SNDRV_SEQ_EVENT_LENGTH_VARIABLE
and data.ext pointing to the original event.  The variable-length
path in snd_seq_event_dup() copies the event data into chained
cells, and snd_seq_expand_var_event() copies only the content --
never the pointer -- to userspace.  For KERNEL_CLIENT, keep the
existing SNDRV_SEQ_EVENT_KERNEL_ERROR behavior with the quoted
pointer.

The Linux kernel CVE team has assigned CVE-2026-74278 to this issue.


Affected and fixed versions
===========================

	Issue introduced in 2.6.12 with commit 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 and fixed in 6.12.97 with commit 93d260ce43a81df579c98bee92b91316df9c1c57
	Issue introduced in 2.6.12 with commit 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 and fixed in 6.18.40 with commit dae23c545eb5a2be3b27a82fd0f611894fb8ab69
	Issue introduced in 2.6.12 with commit 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 and fixed in 7.1.5 with commit 0527a56cb327021cb73167cfddf0e49efa043500
	Issue introduced in 2.6.12 with commit 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 and fixed in 7.2-rc1 with commit efc86691e4d8083d9e380ea95042c2cf679f65fd

Please see https://www.kernel.org for a full list of currently supported
kernel versions by the kernel community.

Unaffected versions might change over time as fixes are backported to
older supported kernel versions.  The official CVE entry at
	https://cve.org/CVERecord/?id=CVE-2026-74278
will be updated if fixes are backported, please check that for the most
up to date information about this issue.


Affected files
==============

The file(s) affected by this issue are:
	sound/core/seq/seq_clientmgr.c


Mitigation
==========

The Linux kernel CVE team recommends that you update to the latest
stable kernel version for this, and many other bugfixes.  Individual
changes are never tested alone, but rather are part of a larger kernel
release.  Cherry-picking individual commits is not recommended or
supported by the Linux kernel community at all.  If however, updating to
the latest release is impossible, the individual changes to resolve this
issue can be found at these commits:
	https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/93d260ce43a81df579c98bee92b91316df9c1c57
	https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/dae23c545eb5a2be3b27a82fd0f611894fb8ab69
	https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/0527a56cb327021cb73167cfddf0e49efa043500
	https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/efc86691e4d8083d9e380ea95042c2cf679f65fd