All vulnerabilities
CVE-2026-97876

grub2: Bypass of GRUB lockdown restriction in Secure Boot mode via serial command MMIO base address

GNU grub2
CVSS
6.4Medium
ExploitationNo known exploitationNot in CISA KEV, which does not prove it is unexploitedCISA KEV
Exploit odds (EPSS)0.11%Chance of exploitation activity in the next 30 days, higher than 1% of CVEs. Scored 23 Oct 2026FIRST EPSS
Fixed in2.16Fixed versionCVE List
Published2 Oct 2026Updated 2 Oct 2026CVE List

What fixes it

A fixed version on one release line is not the upgrade target for every line. Check your exact version and any vendor backports.

Description

A local attacker with control over GRUB's configuration can bypass lockdown restrictions when booting with Secure Boot and load an unsigned GRUB module, while GRUB continues to report lockdown is enabled.

The vulnerability is caused by insufficient validation of the MMIO base address passed to the GRUB serial command. GRUB does not validate that the base address corresponds to a UART device, rather than being an arbitrary memory address. This allows an attacker to trick GRUB into writing non-arbitrary data at an attacker-controlled address, including resetting the grub_file_verifiers list in a way that disables the subsequent verification of loaded modules.

Text from CVE List

Affected versions 1

  • grub2affected: 2.12 before 2.16CVE List

References 2