CVE-2026-23445

Vulnerability

Description

CVE-2026-23445 is a vulnerability in the Linux kernel's igc (Intel Gigabit Ethernet) driver. The root cause is that during shutdown of a TX ring, the xsk_meta pointers are not cleaned up, leaving stale references. When an XDP application that requested TX timestamping shuts down while the network interface link is still up, the interrupt handler (igc_tsync_interrupt) attempts to access these stale pointers, leading to a page fault [1][2].

Exploitation

Conditions

An attacker would need to be able to trigger the specific race condition where an XDP application with TX timestamping enabled is terminated while the interface remains operational. This requires local access to the system and the ability to run XDP programs that request hardware timestamps. The vulnerability manifests as a kernel crash (oops) due to the page fault, which can be used to cause a denial of service [3].

Impact

Successful exploitation results in a kernel panic or system crash, leading to a denial of service. The crash is triggered in the interrupt context, making the system unstable and potentially causing data loss or service interruption. The vulnerability does not appear to allow privilege escalation or arbitrary code execution based on the available information [4].

Mitigation

The fix involves cleaning up the stale xsk_meta data during TX ring shutdown, ensuring that the interrupt handler does not attempt to access invalid pointers. The patch has been applied to the stable kernel tree. Users should update their kernel to a version containing the fix (commit 31521c124e64 or equivalent) to mitigate the vulnerability [1][2][3][4].