[CVE-2026-98362][LOW] clk: scpi: bound-check DVFS index in scpi_dvfs_recalc_rate [ Upstream

[AL-KERNEL <alkernel@kernelcve.org>]

CVE: CVE-2026-98362
Priority: LOW
AL-KERNEL base severity: LOW
KPANIC flag: NO
Patch: clk: scpi: bound-check DVFS index in scpi_dvfs_recalc_rate [ Upstream
Commit: 6e3b55823da8ef0d99621efb422cc29f50d7f280
Upstream patch: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=6e3b55823da8ef0d99621efb422cc29f50d7f280
Original CVE announcement: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-98362
Analysis date: Thu, 08 Oct 2026 05:29:14 -0400
ActionableScore: 1
ActionableScore lower bound: unknown
Actionable bucket: Ordinary Moderate
Manual review required: NO

Summary:
No one-sentence report phrase was found.

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

The original Linux kernel CVE announcement for CVE-2026-98362 is available here:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-98362

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: LOW
Manual review required: NO

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

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

CVE-2026-98362	LOW	https://www.kernelcve.org/list/?q=CVE-2026-98362 CHECK WITH IMPACT FROM ORIG NN LOW | AEGIS IMPACT MODERATE_KPANIC AEGIS_AS=1 LEGACY=LOW RESULT=DIFF (legacy and Aegis reconciliation differ; DECISION: legacy LOW vs Aegis MODERATE_KPANIC)	Maybe valid. Check manually. Hints by AL-KERNEL: The best (paranoid) CVSS is 'AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:H';CWE-125;*CWE-20;CWE-129;Other CVSS 'AV:L/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H';BEST CVSS score: '5.8';DESCR 'An out of bounds read in the SCPI clock driver occurs because scpi_dvfs_recalc_rate accepts a positive DVFS index from SCP firmware without checking that it is below the OPP count. A buggy stale or compromised SCP firmware response can cause the driver to read beyond the OPP array and treat unrelated memory as a clock rate. This may produce a KASAN out of bounds report, an invalid clock rate for kernel consumers, hardware instability, or denial of service. For the CVSS the PR:L paranoid rating assumes a local user or restricted service can request clock rate recalculation after the SCP firmware has entered the faulty state. The issue is not directly network reachable. Impact is at least denial of service. Limited confidentiality and integrity impact are conservatively retained for the paranoid score because an out of bounds kernel read is present, but the patch does not demonstrate an out of bounds write or a direct privilege escalation path.';YES REQUIRES MANUAL CHECK; ,and ActionableScore result is Ordinary Moderate (with actual score 1)	MAYBE	KASAN OOB SIMPLEFIX LINUS 	-	-	checked

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

ActionableScore=1
PrimitiveClass=CLASS_C
RealUAF=NO
HostAdminRequired=UNKNOWN
NamespaceScopedPrivilege=UNKNOWN
ImportantCandidate=NO
ManualReview=RECOMMENDED
AutoDowngradeAllowed=YES

1. ActionableScore

* Raw conservative score: 1
* Conservative score: 1
* Raw paranoid score: 1
* Paranoid score: 1
* Final recommended bucket: **Ordinary Moderate**::

The supplied patch establishes an unchecked positive array index and an out of bounds read, but does not establish attacker control over SCP firmware output, a user-visible information leak, an out of bounds write, a lifetime violation, or a privilege-escalation path. The prior CVSS hint with C:L/I:L/A:H is not sufficiently supported by the supplied evidence for this ActionableScore assessment.

2. Signal breakdown

* +1 Weak or indirect corruption candidate. `dvfs_get_idx()` can return an index greater than or equal to `info->count`, causing `info->opps + idx` to address memory beyond the OPP array.
* +0 Reliable kernel crash or strong DoS not awarded. The commit reports KASAN out of bounds detection and a wrong clock rate. It does not establish a reliable host kernel crash, panic, or host-wide failure.
* +0 Firmware-mediated external influence not awarded. The problematic index originates from SCP firmware, but the supplied evidence does not show that an attacker can control, compromise, or externally influence that firmware.
* +0 Confidentiality not awarded. The out of bounds value is consumed as a clock rate. No copy to userspace, network output, logging disclosure, or other read-back path is established.
* +0 Integrity not awarded. No out of bounds write, active-object corruption, unauthorized modification, or security-boundary bypass is shown.
* +0 Local unprivileged trigger not awarded. The supplied patch does not establish that an ordinary local user can cause the relevant SCP response and clock recalculation sequence.
* +0 Strong or weak LPE leverage not awarded. The patch contains no controlled reclaim, object replacement, refcount manipulation, callback influence, directed write, or credential-related effect.
* +0 Remote reachability not awarded. Firmware-mediated clock state is not a directly network-triggerable interface.
* No negative privilege, rarity, hardware, or race penalties were applied. The evidence does not positively establish such restrictions, but it also does not establish lower-privilege reachability.

3. Reachability analysis

The vulnerable value is returned by the SCP firmware `dvfs_get_idx()` operation. The patch describes a buggy or stale firmware result, not an attacker-controlled input channel.

A host administrator may be able to update firmware, alter platform state, or exercise privileged clock-management paths, but the supplied evidence does not establish that host-admin-equivalent privilege is required for every possible trigger. Therefore, `HostAdminRequired=UNKNOWN` is appropriate.

Likewise, no capability check, user namespace behavior, network namespace behavior, or complete namespace-scoped trigger sequence is visible. Therefore, `NamespaceScopedPrivilege=UNKNOWN`.

The issue depends on a platform using the SCPI clock driver and on an SCP firmware response that is stale or invalid. This is a platform and firmware precondition, but no rare-hardware penalty is applied because the prompt does not establish that the affected hardware is physically rare or inaccessible. There is no race condition in the described mechanism.

4. Primitive and severity interpretation

The exact primitive is a read-only out of bounds array access:

`opp = clk->info->opps + idx`

where `idx` was checked only for negativity and could exceed `clk->info->count`.

The subsequent code treats memory beyond the `scpi_opp` array as a clock-rate record. The demonstrated effect is invalid clock-rate calculation and a KASAN out of bounds report in instrumented kernels. Hardware instability or denial of service is plausible if an invalid rate propagates to consumers, but a reliable kernel panic or system-wide DoS is not established.

This is not a UAF, refcount issue, double release, active-object replacement, or write primitive. It is therefore `CLASS_C`, representing invalid-state behavior and a limited out of bounds read without an independently useful disclosure or corruption primitive.

`ImportantCandidate=NO` because there is no established exploitation leverage beyond the invalid read and incorrect rate value. `AutoDowngradeAllowed=YES` because no unresolved active lifetime primitive, controlled corruption, authorization bypass, shared-page violation, or concrete post-lifetime mutation remains.

5. One-sentence report phrase

An unchecked SCP firmware supplied DVFS index can cause the SCPI clock driver to read beyond the OPP array and use unrelated memory as a clock rate, potentially causing incorrect frequency handling or limited denial of service.

6. Manual review recommendation

MANUAL CHECK RECOMMENDED

The patch establishes a real kernel out of bounds read, but the supplied evidence does not establish attacker control of the SCP firmware response or a concrete disclosure, write, crash, or privilege-escalation consequence.

7. Call-site confidence

Call-site confidence: medium

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

Patch: clk: scpi: bound-check DVFS index in scpi_dvfs_recalc_rate [ Upstream
Commit: 6e3b55823da8ef0d99621efb422cc29f50d7f280
Upstream URL: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?id=6e3b55823da8ef0d99621efb422cc29f50d7f280

Changed files:
  drivers/clk/clk-scpi.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=6e3b55823da8ef0d99621efb422cc29f50d7f280

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

The original Linux kernel CVE announcement for CVE-2026-98362 can be found here:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/?q=CVE-2026-98362

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:L/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
  The Best / paranoid CVSS vector: AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:H
  The Best / paranoid CVSS score: 5.8

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: 1

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: LOW
KPANIC detected for this report: NO
Published priority for this report (same as in Subject): LOW

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).