CVE-2026-85769 is a vulnerability in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Published on September 4, 2026
Libtpms: libtpms: heap out-of-bounds read in tpm2 state unmarshalling via unchecked block_skip_read() blocksize
A flaw was found in libtpms, a library that provides software TPM 2.0 emulation. When restoring TPM 2.0 state (for example during a virtual machine's power-on or state/migration restore), a malformed state blob can supply an oversized skip-block length that is not validated against the remaining size of the input buffer. This can drive an internal size counter negative, which bypasses a subsequent bounds check due to an unsafe signed-to-unsigned conversion, causing the parser to read memory outside the bounds of the heap buffer holding the state data. Successful exploitation can crash the process hosting libtpms (such as swtpm), resulting in a denial of service of the emulated TPM device and the virtual machine that depends on it. No data corruption or information disclosure was confirmed.
Vulnerability Analysis
Timeline
Reported to Red Hat.
Made public. 3 days later.
Weakness Type
Out-of-bounds Read
The software reads data past the end, or before the beginning, of the intended buffer. Typically, this can allow attackers to read sensitive information from other memory locations or cause a crash. A crash can occur when the code reads a variable amount of data and assumes that a sentinel exists to stop the read operation, such as a NUL in a string. The expected sentinel might not be located in the out-of-bounds memory, causing excessive data to be read, leading to a segmentation fault or a buffer overflow. The software may modify an index or perform pointer arithmetic that references a memory location that is outside of the boundaries of the buffer. A subsequent read operation then produces undefined or unexpected results.
Products Associated with CVE-2026-85769
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