[CVE-2026-97951][MODERATE REGULAR] scsi: target: iscsi: Fix hang for aborted WRITE_PENDING commands [ Upstream

[CVE-2026-97951][MODERATE REGULAR] scsi: target: iscsi: Fix hang for aborted WRITE_PENDING commands [ Upstream

[AL-KERNEL]

CVE: CVE-2026-97951
Priority: MODERATE REGULAR
AL-KERNEL base severity: MODERATE
KPANIC flag: NO
Patch: scsi: target: iscsi: Fix hang for aborted WRITE_PENDING commands [ Upstream
Commit: 638cf7c0cf64d5bb5704c3a78b54ae6602f69a32
Upstream patch: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=638cf7c0cf64d5bb5704c3a78b54ae6602f69a32
Original CVE announcement: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-97951
Analysis date: Fri, 25 Sep 2026 14:43:38 -0400
ActionableScore: 3
ActionableScore lower bound: unknown
Actionable bucket: Borderline / manual review recommended
Manual review required: YES

Summary:
No one-sentence report phrase was found.

======================================================================
ABOUT THIS REPORT
======================================================================

The original Linux kernel CVE announcement for CVE-2026-97951 is available here:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-97951

The original announcement does not normally provide a security severity
estimate, CVSS assessment, or enough information to determine whether the
reported kernel bug represents a practically relevant security issue.

This report was generated by AL-KERNEL, an AI-assisted Linux kernel
vulnerability analysis system developed by Alexander Larkin. It combines
an autonomous classifier with LLM-assisted technical analysis and a
separate ActionableScore mechanism.

The purpose of this report is to prioritize Linux kernel CVEs before
manual review, identify cases that require prompt investigation, and
support automatic closure of issues that are unlikely to have meaningful
security impact.

Published priority for this report: MODERATE REGULAR
Manual review required: YES

A detailed explanation of the methodology and priority rules is included
at the end of this message.

======================================================================
AL-KERNEL CLASSIFICATION RESULT
======================================================================

CVE-2026-97951	MODERATE	https://www.kernelcve.org/list/?q=CVE-2026-97951 CHECK WITH IMPACT FROM ORIG NN MODERATE	Maybe valid. Check manually. Hints by AL-KERNEL: The best (paranoid) CVSS is 'AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H';*CWE-833;CWE-667;**CWE-400;Other CVSS 'AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L';BEST CVSS score: '7.5';DESCR 'An iSCSI target worker can deadlock when a LUN_RESET aborts a WRITE_PENDING command and the initiator later sends the final remaining Data Out PDU. The command payload is discarded but the aborted command is not completed, leaving the abort path blocked in target_put_cmd_and_wait and causing denial of service for affected target processing. For the CVSS the PR:N is used for the higher paranoid score because a remote iSCSI initiator can trigger the protocol sequence without local execution on the target, although real deployments may require access to an authenticated storage network. The issue is network reachable only when the iSCSI target is exposed to the attacker. Impact is at least service degradation or a stalled target worker. Repeated triggering may cause broader iSCSI target availability loss. No confidentiality or integrity impact is supported by the patch context.';YES REQUIRES MANUAL CHECK; ,and ActionableScore result is Borderline / manual review recommended (with actual score 3)	YES	DEADLOCK DANGER INIT SIMPLEFIX LINUS  INCREASED_TO_MODERATE7_BASED_ON_GUESSCVSS DECREASED_TO_MODERATEREG_BASED_ON_ACTIONABLESCORELESSTHAN4	NO	NO	checked

======================================================================
ACTIONABLESCORE ANALYSIS
======================================================================

ActionableScore=3
PrimitiveClass=CLASS_C
RealUAF=NO
HostAdminRequired=NO
NamespaceScopedPrivilege=UNKNOWN
ImportantCandidate=NO
ManualReview=RECOMMENDED
AutoDowngradeAllowed=YES

1. ActionableScore

* Raw conservative score: 3
* Conservative score: 3
* Raw paranoid score: 3
* Paranoid score: 3
* Final recommended bucket: **Borderline / manual review recommended**::

2. Signal breakdown

* +2 Directly network-triggerable. An iSCSI initiator can send the required LUN_RESET, WRITE_PENDING, and final Data Out PDU sequence to an exposed iSCSI target.
* +1 Denial of service. The patch establishes that target_put_cmd_and_wait can remain blocked indefinitely, deadlocking an iSCSI target worker thread.
* +0 No memory corruption primitive. The patch does not show UAF, double free, refcount misuse, OOB access, stale pointer dereference, or invalid ownership transfer.
* +0 No confidentiality or integrity impact. No disclosure, unauthorized data modification, protocol authorization bypass, or privilege escalation mechanism is established.
* +0 No additional Availability point. The demonstrated consequence is one blocked target worker thread. Broader worker-pool exhaustion or host-wide unavailability is not directly established by the supplied patch.
* +0 No paranoid escalation. Repeating the protocol sequence may be operationally harmful, but the patch does not demonstrate exhaustion of all target workers, kernel panic, or persistent storage corruption.

3. Reachability analysis

The attacker model is a remote iSCSI initiator that can establish a connection to the affected iSCSI target and submit storage protocol traffic. The complete trigger does not require local execution or host-admin privileges on the target, therefore HostAdminRequired is NO.

The target must already be configured, enabled, and reachable over the network. iSCSI deployments commonly use isolated storage networks and can use CHAP or other access controls, but those deployment conditions are not evidence that host-admin privilege is required for the attacker. Namespace-scoped privilege is not relevant to the demonstrated remote protocol path and remains UNKNOWN.

The condition is an ordered protocol-state sequence, not a timing race. No special hardware, boot option, sysctl, or uncommon device feature is indicated by the patch.

4. Primitive and severity interpretation

The exact primitive is an incomplete aborted-command state transition. After LUN_RESET marks a WRITE_PENDING command with CMD_T_ABORTED, receipt of the final Data Out PDU discards the payload but fails to complete the command. As a result, the abort path remains blocked in target_put_cmd_and_wait.

This is neither an active structured-object lifetime violation nor fixed stale storage. There is no first release that may end object lifetime, no surviving dangling reference, and no second lifetime or refcount mutation. The issue is therefore CLASS_C rather than CLASS_A or CLASS_B.

The demonstrated consequence is a deadlocked iSCSI target worker thread and denial of service for affected target processing. A broader iSCSI service disruption is plausible if operational conditions amplify blocked work, but this is not established strongly enough to increase the score. ImportantCandidate is NO because no corruption, authorization, ownership, or security-boundary primitive remains unresolved. AutoDowngradeAllowed is YES because the patch-supported impact is limited to protocol-state deadlock and DoS.

5. One-sentence report phrase

A remote iSCSI initiator can deadlock an iSCSI target worker by sending final Data Out traffic for a WRITE_PENDING command that was aborted by LUN_RESET, causing denial of service for affected target processing.

6. Manual review recommendation

MANUAL CHECK RECOMMENDED

The issue is directly network reachable when an iSCSI target is exposed, but the patch establishes only a target worker deadlock and does not indicate memory corruption, data exposure, integrity loss, or privilege escalation.

7. Call-site confidence

Call-site confidence: medium

======================================================================
UPSTREAM PATCH SUMMARY
======================================================================

Patch: scsi: target: iscsi: Fix hang for aborted WRITE_PENDING commands [ Upstream
Commit: 638cf7c0cf64d5bb5704c3a78b54ae6602f69a32
Upstream URL: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=638cf7c0cf64d5bb5704c3a78b54ae6602f69a32

Changed files:
  drivers/target/iscsi/iscsi_target.c

Diff excerpt:

Not included in this email. See the upstream URL for the full patch.

Full patch:
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=638cf7c0cf64d5bb5704c3a78b54ae6602f69a32

======================================================================
DETAILED REPORT METHODOLOGY
======================================================================

The original Linux kernel CVE announcement for CVE-2026-97951 can be found here:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-97951

The original CVE announcement normally does not include a security-level
estimate. In particular, it may not contain a CVSS assessment, an impact
level, or enough information to determine whether the reported bug is a
practically relevant security issue. One purpose of this parallel CVE list
is to provide that missing technical and prioritization information.

The original goal of the AL-KERNEL project was to prioritize Linux kernel
CVE analysis automatically before manual review. The system can also help
identify non-security issues that may be suitable for automatic closure.

This report was generated by AL-KERNEL, an AI-assisted Linux kernel
vulnerability analysis system developed by Alexander Larkin.

The first analysis stage combines an autonomous classifier with additional
LLM-based analysis. The autonomous classifier runs locally on a CPU and is
based on a backpropagation neural network. Together, these mechanisms
produce a technical vulnerability description, identify likely weakness
types, estimate CVSS severity, and provide input for ActionableScore.

Two CVSS estimates are retained because incomplete kernel vulnerability
information often permits more than one defensible interpretation:

  Conservative CVSS vector: AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:L
  The Best / paranoid CVSS vector: AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
  The Best / paranoid CVSS score: 7.5

The conservative vector represents a lower-impact interpretation.
The Best/paranoid vector intentionally represents a plausible upper-bound
interpretation and should not automatically be treated as demonstrated
real-world impact.

CVSS may also need to be adjusted for a particular Linux deployment,
because actual reachability, privileges, enabled kernel configuration,
hardware, namespaces, exposed device nodes, and other environmental
conditions can differ significantly between systems.

A separate ActionableScore mechanism evaluates practical remediation
urgency. Its analysis may include reachability, attack prerequisites,
subsystem exposure, memory-corruption characteristics, denial-of-service
reliability, and possible confidentiality, integrity, or
privilege-escalation impact.

  Conservative ActionableScore: unknown
  Paranoid ActionableScore: 3

The final base severity is taken directly from the second tab-separated
field of the AL-KERNEL classification result. ActionableScore does not
replace or independently override that final AL-KERNEL decision, and
if ActionableScore adjusted impact level of ALKERNEL, then you would see
self-readable flags above like INCREASED_TO_HIGH_BASED_ON_ACTIONABLESCOREHIGHEREQTHAN7.

For an AL-KERNEL result of MODERATE, this report uses the following
additional presentation split:

  ActionableScore below 5   -> MODERATE REGULAR
  ActionableScore 5 or more -> MODERATE 7.0

The distinction between MODERATE REGULAR and MODERATE 7.0 makes it
possible to identify Moderate issues that should receive manual analysis
and fixes before lower-priority MODERATE REGULAR issues. In many cases,
MODERATE REGULAR fixes may wait for a later rebase or routine update.

There is one override in which MODERATE REGULAR becomes MODERATE 7.0
even when the ActionableScore is below 5. When the AL-KERNEL result
contains the KPANIC flag, a MODERATE result is always presented as
MODERATE 7.0. The KPANIC flag selected with few regexps without
usage of AI at all, so it helps to detect cases when Kernel Crash happens
and similar (to filter False-Negative results from the LLM usage).

KPANIC indicates that a reliable kernel crash, kernel panic, or similarly
serious kernel availability impact was identified by the classification
workflow.

AL-KERNEL base severity for this report: MODERATE
KPANIC detected for this report: NO
Published priority for this report (same as in Subject): MODERATE REGULAR

These results are intended to support engineering triage. They are
machine-generated estimates, and cases marked for manual review should
be validated by a human security engineer before final disposition.
For more info read docs linked from here: https://kernelcve.org/
(and you can submit you own patch there to generate such a report
for non-existant CVE-id yet).

Note that in many cases this AI tool selects higher severity, than
real is (means you can expect Importants instead of Moderate 7.0 or
Moderates 7.0 instead of regular Moderates). If you see such cases,
please use reply email interface to add additional manual analyses
info to this particular CVE.
And please, please, let me know when you see Lows instead of Importants
or Important instead of Low (because particular for such cases I
need to tune this AI tool to make it better for this one and next similar).
My contact email for such notifications is alexanjelausa@gmail.com (and both
send reply to CVE record itself too and see "reply" button below for howto reply).