CVE-2026-23353
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedIn the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ice: fix crash in ethtool offline loopback test Since the conversion of ice to page pool, the ethtool loopback test crashes: BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 000000000000000c #PF: supervisor write access in kernel mode #PF: error_code(0x0002) - not-present page PGD 1100f1067 P4D 0 Oops: Oops: 0002 [#1] SMP NOPTI CPU: 23 UID: 0 PID: 5904 Comm: ethtool Kdump: loaded Not tainted 6.19.0-0.rc7.260128g1f97d9dcf5364.49.eln154.x86_64 #1 PREEMPT(lazy) Hardware name: [...] RIP: 0010:ice_alloc_rx_bufs+0x1cd/0x310 [ice] Code: 83 6c 24 30 01 66 41 89 47 08 0f 84 c0 00 00 00 41 0f b7 dc 48 8b 44 24 18 48 c1 e3 04 41 bb 00 10 00 00 48 8d 2c 18 8b 04 24 <89> 45 0c 41 8b 4d 00 49 d3 e3 44 3b 5c 24 24 0f 83 ac fe ff ff 44 RSP: 0018:ff7894738aa1f768 EFLAGS: 00010246 RAX: 0000000000000000 RBX: 0000000000000000 RCX: 0000000000000000 RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 0000000000000700 RDI: 0000000000000000 RBP: 0000000000000000 R08: ff16dcae79880200 R09: 0000000000000019 R10: 0000000000000001 R11: 0000000000001000 R12: 0000000000000000 R13: 0000000000000000 R14: 0000000000000000 R15: ff16dcae6c670000 FS: 00007fcf428850c0(0000) GS:ff16dcb149710000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: 000000000000000c CR3: 0000000121227005 CR4: 0000000000773ef0 PKRU: 55555554 Call Trace: <TASK> ice_vsi_cfg_rxq+0xca/0x460 [ice] ice_vsi_cfg_rxqs+0x54/0x70 [ice] ice_loopback_test+0xa9/0x520 [ice] ice_self_test+0x1b9/0x280 [ice] ethtool_self_test+0xe5/0x200 __dev_ethtool+0x1106/0x1a90 dev_ethtool+0xbe/0x1a0 dev_ioctl+0x258/0x4c0 sock_do_ioctl+0xe3/0x130 __x64_sys_ioctl+0xb9/0x100 do_syscall_64+0x7c/0x700 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e [...] It crashes because we have not initialized libeth for the rx ring. Fix it by treating ICE_VSI_LB VSIs slightly more like normal PF VSIs and letting them have a q_vector. It's just a dummy, because the loopback test does not use interrupts, but it contains a napi struct that can be passed to libeth_rx_fq_create() called from ice_vsi_cfg_rxq() -> ice_rxq_pp_create().
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysisThe code follows a pointer that is null, crashing the process. An attacker who can reliably trigger it turns the crash into a denial of service. The fix is checking for null before use and handling the failure path gracefully.
General guidance for the null pointer dereference class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data>= 6.19.1, < 6.19.7= 6.19= 7.0CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Local
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- Low
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
dbcve · scoped6.19.7
Kernel 6.19.7 or later, or 7.x stable branch >= 7.1
- 1. Identify the current running kernel version using `uname -r`
- 2. Upgrade the Linux kernel to version 6.19.7 or later, or to version 7.1 or later if using the 7.x stable branch
- 3. For enterprise Linux distributions, apply the vendor-provided kernel update that includes this fix (e.g., RHEL, Ubuntu, SUSE kernel updates)
- 4. Reboot the system to load the fixed kernel
- 5. After reboot, verify the kernel version is >= 6.19.7 using `uname -r`
- 6. Test the ice driver loopback functionality using `ethtool -t <interface> offline` to confirm the fix resolves the NULL pointer dereference
Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.
Scan for this in your stack
Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2026-23353 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2026-23353 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
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