Skip to content
Fencer Vulns
high 7.8

CVE-2026-53234 json

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

published 2026-06-25 4 mo ago modified 2026-07-08 4 mo ago also EUVD-2026-39325

cvss
7.8
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.2%
EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 7%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.12.94, 6.18.36, 7.0.13, 7.1
  • linux Debian 13 6.12.94-1
  • linux Debian 14 7.0.13-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-53234

  • linux Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-31.31
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1012.12
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1011.11
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1006.7
  • linux-ibm Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1013.13
  • linux-azure Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1014.14
  • linux-raspi Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1019.19
  • linux-riscv Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-31.31.1

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2026-53234

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2026-53234 updated

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

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

Exploit prediction

0.18% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 7% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Weakness
Technology feeds

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.