CVE-2026-64228 is a vulnerability in Linux Kernel
Published on July 24, 2026
net: ethtool: phy: avoid NULL deref when PHY driver is unbound
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
net: ethtool: phy: avoid NULL deref when PHY driver is unbound
phydev->drv can become NULL while the phy_device is still attached to
its net_device, namely after the PHY driver is unbound via sysfs:
echo <mdio_id> > /sys/bus/mdio_bus/drivers/<phy_drv>/unbind
phy_remove() clears phydev->drv but doesn't call phy_detach(), so the
phy_device stays in the link topology xarray and ethnl_req_get_phydev()
still hands it back. ETHTOOL_MSG_PHY_GET then oopses on:
rep_data->drvname = kstrdup(phydev->drv->name, GFP_KERNEL);
drvname is already treated as optional by phy_reply_size(),
phy_fill_reply() and phy_cleanup_data(), so just skip the allocation
when there is no driver bound.
Products Associated with CVE-2026-64228
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Affected Versions
Linux:- Version 9dd2ad5e92b962d1349a7541d167e8e214e49f95 and below 3586924625559e6f9876d726c80ff0a75f0d5849 is affected.
- Version 9dd2ad5e92b962d1349a7541d167e8e214e49f95 and below 17fe2381f967d353183f374a1c0181a6d194158c is affected.
- Version 9dd2ad5e92b962d1349a7541d167e8e214e49f95 and below e3adf69f8eb121a9128c2b0029efd050d3649153 is affected.
- Version 6.16 is affected.
- Before 6.16 is unaffected.
- Version 6.18.34, <= 6.18.* is unaffected.
- Version 7.0.11, <= 7.0.* is unaffected.
- Version 7.1, <= * is unaffected.