CVEvulnerability
CVE-2026-53234
7.8 HIGH
Official page ↗
- Status
- Analyzed
- Published
- 2026-06-25
- Last modified
- 2026-07-08
- Assigner
- 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
- CVSS 3.1 ([email protected])
- 7.8 HIGH — CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
- Weaknesses
- CWE-416
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
net: ibm: emac: Fix use-after-free during device removal
The driver was using devm_register_netdev() which causes unregister_netdev()
to be deferred until the devres cleanup phase, which runs after emac_remove()
returns. This creates a use-after-free window where:
1. emac_remove() is called, which tears down hardware (cancels work, detaches
modules, unregisters from MAL)
2. emac_remove() returns
3. devres cleanup runs and finally calls unregister_netdev()
During step 3, the network stack might still process packets, triggering
emac_irq(), emac_poll(), or other handlers that access now-freed hardware
resources (dev->emacp, dev->mal, etc.).
Fix this by replacing devm_register_netdev() with manual register_netdev()
and calling unregister_netdev() at the beginning of emac_remove(), before
any hardware teardown. This ensures the network device is fully stopped and
unregistered before hardware resources are released.
The change is safe because:
- dev->ndev is assigned very early in probe (before any error paths that
could bypass emac_remove)
- platform_set_drvdata() is only called after successful registration, so
emac_remove() only runs for fully registered devices
- unregister_netdev() is idempotent and safe to call on any registered device
Affected configurations
• linux linux kernel (>= 6.12 < 6.12.94)
• linux linux kernel (>= 6.13 < 6.18.36)
• linux linux kernel (>= 6.19 < 7.0.13)
• linux linux kernel 7.1
Related
Weakness · CWE (1)
- CWE-416 Use After Free weakness
References
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/a0130d682222ae21afc395aead7cd2d87e1a8358 Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/c09c2e236eef6f59e105f38a30f5439e6ccbcad7 Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/c12584cd6078085d707266be864e7e1cc91d74e3 Patch
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/cf8e14db93eaecc4c0c58299be3b3183b0e53ed5 Patch