CVE-2026-98845 PUBLISHED

tpm: Disable TPM on null key name mismatch

Assigner: Linux
Reserved: 25.09.2026 Published: 18.10.2026 Updated: 18.10.2026

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

tpm: Disable TPM on null key name mismatch

The null key name check exists to protect against TPM reset attacks, so a mismatch should stop the device from serving further requests. Currently it does not disable the chip when it finds a mismatch.

The mismatch is logged:

<pre>tpm tpm0: null key integrity check failed </pre>

but the chip keeps serving commands:

<pre>/ # tpm2_getcap -c properties-fixed TPM_PT_FAMILY_INDICATOR: as UINT32: 0x08322e3000 as string: "2.0" ... </pre>

tpm2_load_null() where the null key name check is run sets the chip as disabled only if the rc is non zero. When the mismatch is seen, rc is zero at that point and it returns success. The other issue is that the caller expects the null key handle to be populated when the function returns 0 which it does here without writing the handle and proceeds assuming the null key handle is valid.

During the test, I noticed that tpm2_start_auth_session() uses the uninitialized stack value as the key handle since tpm2_load_null() returns 0 despite the integrity failure and proceeds with TPM2_CC_START_AUTH_SESS with this value as salt key handle.

Set rc to -ENODEV on the mismatch. The error path then disables the chip and returns the correct code to the caller.

Tested in QEMU with swtpm and CONFIG_TCG_TPM2_HMAC=y by making TPM2_CC_CONTEXT_LOAD fail with TPM2_RC_INTEGRITY and changing the name of the re-created null key. The chip is now disabled on the mismatch.

Product Status

Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from cc7d8594342a25693d40fe96f97e5c6c29ee609c to a03d0c64cd827a622578623a78defd66b6593b82 (excl.)
  • affected from cc7d8594342a25693d40fe96f97e5c6c29ee609c to 96c46c75b0d470b4204f9fe1bdb075cd2ebaebfa (excl.)
  • affected from cc7d8594342a25693d40fe96f97e5c6c29ee609c to f6599d8830fe7ddab7334cc17846fd9ac9a7fa50 (excl.)
  • affected from cc7d8594342a25693d40fe96f97e5c6c29ee609c to 015fb29a748342a186f37b602ac70017098c8251 (excl.)
  • Version 294984ce51c19c2af3d0d71e1c8bd589bc86b8e2 is affected
  • Version 386c7cc6c06d64cbf36d15c5e2319814765e107c is affected
  • affected from 6.11.7 to 6.12 (excl.)
  • affected from 6.11.10 to 6.12 (excl.)
Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: affected
  • Version 6.12 is affected
  • unaffected from 0 to 6.12 (excl.)
  • unaffected from 6.12.113 to 6.12.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.18.56 to 6.18.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.2.10 to 7.2.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.3-rc6 to * (incl.)

References