CVE-2024-26790

What it actually does

QDMA-initiated 16-byte unaligned reads can stall in the NOC on affected SoCs, triggering PCIe completion timeouts and system deadlock.

Why it matters to the business

Systems using the affected hardware may experience unexpected hangs or crashes during DMA operations, resulting in service disruption and potential data loss until reboot.

How an attack unfolds

No remote exploitation is possible; the issue manifests when the kernel driver initiates unaligned reads without the prefetch workaround enabled on affected Freescale QDMA hardware.

How to fix it

Update the Linux kernel to a version containing commit 518d78b4fac68cac29a263554d7f3b19da99d0da or later; enable source descriptor prefetch (SD[PF]=1) as a temporary mitigation on vulnerable hardware.

How to confirm the fix worked

Verify the running kernel includes commit 518d78b4fac68cac29a263554d7f3b19da99d0da and confirm the prefetch bit is set in active QDMA descriptors via driver logs or hardware inspection.

How to detect it

Review kernel boot logs and DMA driver output for unaligned transaction warnings or PCIe completion timeout messages on affected platforms; no post-exploitation artifacts exist.

What your security team should do

• Apply the referenced kernel commit or newer stable release immediately on all ls1028a and similar QDMA platforms
• Audit DMA configurations to ensure prefetch is enabled where hardware errata apply
• Monitor for PCIe timeout events in system logs as an indicator of exposure