← back
CVE-2026-53234

net: ibm: emac: Fix use-after-free during device removal

EPSS 0.2%
Vexday Risk Score
3Low
SSVC decision (CISA)
Track
No exploitation signal → monitor
CVSS EPSS 0.2%KEV nãoPoC Nuclei Metasploit Patch
Lifecycle
25 Jun 2026Published on NVD
Recommendation: Monitor — no exploitation signal at the moment.
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 products
Linux · Linux

Want to know if your infrastructure is exposed to this?

Talk to TrueHacking →