CVE-2026-64120CWE-476

CVE-2026-64120

Medium · published July 19, 2026

CVSS v3.1
5.5
EPSS
0%
Percentile
4.8
In the wild
Unconfirmed
What it is

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

net: ethtool: fix NULL pointer dereference in phy_reply_size

In phy_prepare_data(), several strings such as 'name', 'drvname',

'upstream_sfp_name', and 'downstream_sfp_name' are allocated using

kstrdup(). However, these allocations were not checked for failure.

If kstrdup() fails for 'name', it returns NULL while the function

continues. This leads to a kernel NULL pointer dereference and panic

later in phy_reply_size() when it unconditionally calls strlen() on

the NULL pointer.

While other strings like 'upstream_sfp_name' might be checked before

access in certain code paths, failing to handle these allocations

consistently can lead to incomplete data reporting or hidden bugs.

Fix this by adding proper NULL checks for all kstrdup() calls in

phy_prepare_data() and implement a centralized error handling path

using goto labels to ensure all previously allocated resources are

freed on failure.

The record
Technical detail
CVSS v3.1
5.5 · MEDIUM
Vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
CVSS v4.0
Not supplied
EPSS
0.00160 · 4.8th percentile
Weakness
CWE-476 · NULL Pointer Dereference
Published
2026-07-19T20:17Z
Affected products (5)
ProductVersionsFixed in
linux/linux_kernel≥ 6.16, < 6.18.346.18.34
linux/linux_kernel≥ 6.19, < 7.0.117.0.11
linux/linux_kernelall versions—
linux/linux_kernelall versions—
linux/linux_kernelall versions—
References (3)
EPSS history
Timeline
  • 19 JUL 15:40Z
    net: ethtool: fix NULL pointer dereference in phy_reply_size
    cvelistv5