CVE-2026-98008

Updated on 25 Sep 2026

Severity

4.4 Medium severity

Details

CVSS score
4.4

Overview

About vulnerability

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

net: macb: fix NULL pointer dereference on unbind with fixed-link

When the device tree describes a fixed-link and has no “mdio” child node, macb_mii_init() returns early without allocating the MDIO bus, leaving bp->mii_bus as NULL.

Two cleanup paths then dereference this NULL bus:

  1. On driver unbind, macb_remove() unconditionally calls mdiobus_unregister(bp->mii_bus), which oopses:

Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 00000000000004a8 pc : mdiobus_unregister+0x14/0xa4 lr : macb_remove+0x38/0xa4 Call trace: mdiobus_unregister+0x14/0xa4 (P) macb_remove+0x38/0xa4 platform_remove+0x20/0x30 device_release_driver_internal+0x1c8/0x224 unbind_store+0xb4/0xbc

  1. On the probe error path in macb_probe(), reached when macb_mii_init() has succeeded but a subsequent step fails, the err_out_unregister_mdio label runs the same unconditional cleanup.

mdiobus_unregister() and mdiobus_free() do not guard against a NULL bus, so guard the calls in both macb_remove() and the probe error path.

Details

Affected product:
Debian 11 ELS
Affected packages:
linux @ 5.10.259

Fixes

KernelCare state

Live-patch status from KernelCare for each operating system.

Operating system Status Covered kernels
Debian 12 Planned —
Debian 13 Will Not Fix
17 kernels
  • 6.12.85-1
  • 6.12.86-1
  • 6.12.88-1
  • 6.12.74-2
  • 6.12.73-1
  • 6.12.63-1
  • 6.12.69-1
  • 6.12.74-1
  • 6.12.90-1
  • 6.12.90-2
  • 6.12.94-1
  • 6.12.95-1
  • 6.12.96-1
  • 6.12.100-1
  • 6.12.101-1
  • 6.12.105-1
  • 6.12.107-1