CVE-2026-53300

net: enetc: fix NTMP DMA use-after-free issue

High · published June 26, 2026

CVSS v3.1
7.8
EPSS
0%
Percentile
5.9
In the wild
Unconfirmed
What it is

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

net: enetc: fix NTMP DMA use-after-free issue

The AI-generated review reported a potential DMA use-after-free issue

[1]. If netc_xmit_ntmp_cmd() times out and returns an error, the pending

command is not explicitly aborted, while ntmp_free_data_mem()

unconditionally frees the DMA buffer. If the buffer has already been

reallocated elsewhere, this may lead to silent memory corruption. Because

the hardware eventually processes the pending command and perform a DMA

write of the response to the physical address of the freed buffer.

To resolve this issue, this patch does the following modifications:

1. Convert cbdr->ring_lock from a spinlock to a mutex

The lock was originally a spinlock in case NTMP operations might be

invoked from atomic context. After downstream support for all NTMP

tables, no such usage has materialized. A mutex lock is now required

because the driver now needs to reclaim used BDs and release associated

DMA memory within the lock's context, while dma_free_coherent() might

sleep.

2. Introduce software command BD (struct netc_swcbd)

The hardware write-back overwrites the addr and len fields of the BD,

so the driver cannot rely on the hardware BD to free the associated DMA

memory. The driver now maintains a software shadow BD storing the DMA

buffer pointer, DMA address, and size. And netc_xmit_ntmp_cmd() only

reclaims older BDs when the number of used BDs reaches

NETC_CBDR_CLEAN_WORK (16). The software BD enables correct DMA memory

release. With this, struct ntmp_dma_buf and ntmp_free_data_mem() are no

longer needed and are removed.

3. Require callers to hold ring_lock across netc_xmit_ntmp_cmd()

netc_xmit_ntmp_cmd() releases the ring_lock before the caller finishes

consuming the response. At this point, if a concurrent thread submits

a new command, it may trigger ntmp_clean_cbdr() and free the DMA buffer

while it is still in use. Move ring_lock ownership to the caller to

ensure the response buffer cannot be reclaimed prematurely. So the

helpers ntmp_select_and_lock_cbdr() and ntmp_unlock_cbdr() are added.

These changes eliminate the DMA use-after-free condition and ensure safe

and consistent BD reclamation and DMA buffer lifecycle management.

The record
Technical detail
CVSS v3.1
7.8 · HIGH
Vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CVSS v4.0
Not supplied
EPSS
0.00168 · 5.9th percentile
Published
2026-06-26T19:40Z
EPSS history
Timeline
  • 26 JUN 19:40Z
    net: enetc: fix NTMP DMA use-after-free issue
    cvelistv5