CVE-2026-72396

A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's hwmon subsystem, specifically in the adm1275 driver. This vulnerability allows a local attacker or a specially crafted device to trigger an out-of-bounds read during device name comparison. By providing a device name shorter than expected, uninitialized stack memory can be accessed, potentially leading to the disclosure of sensitive information.

A low-impact out-of-bounds read flaw was found in the Linux kernel hwmon adm1275 hot-swap controller driver, affecting the kernel and kernel-rt components of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat In-Vehicle OS. During device probing in adm1275_probe(), i2c_smbus_read_block_data() reads the PMBUS_MFR_MODEL model string into an uninitialized stack buffer without appending a null terminator. If the device returns a model string shorter than the expected device name (for example "adm12" checked against "adm1275"), the subsequent strncasecmp() comparison can read past the valid returned bytes into uninitialized stack memory, potentially disclosing limited kernel stack contents. Exploiting this requires a local attacker with elevated privileges to control or emulate the I2C/PMBus device being probed; the flaw is a read of uninitialized stack data with no supported evidence of memory corruption or privilege escalation, so Red Hat rates the security impact as low even though the CVSS:3.1 base score of 5.5 (Moderate) reflects a potential availability impact. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Extended Lifecycle Support is not affected because the vulnerable code is not present in that stream. Fixes for the affected streams are deferred to a future update; the residual risk is limited to possible disclosure of uninitialized kernel stack bytes during device probing, which requires privileged local access and a specially crafted or misbehaving adm1275-compatible device.

The CVSS score(s) listed for this vulnerability do not reflect the associated product's status, and are included for informational purposes to better understand the severity of this vulnerability.

Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options do not meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base, or stability.