Medium [CVE-2026-64228] avoid NULL deref when PHY driver is unbound
This medium-severity Red Hat Linux advisory covers CVE-2026-64228 affecting Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux for NVIDIA 26, Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.
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Summary
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 > /sys/bus/mdio_bus/drivers//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. This can lead to a kernel crash, resulting in a denial of service.
Red Hat severity: Low — CVSS 5.5 (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H). Weakness: CWE-476.
Affected Red Hat products: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10; Red Hat Enterprise Linux for NVIDIA 26; Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4. Red Hat lists Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 as not affected.
Will not fix / out of support: Red Hat Enterprise Linux for NVIDIA 26. Red Hat does not currently list a fixing RHSA for this CVE.
Affected products named by the advisory: Red Hat package: kernel; Red Hat package: libkrun.
Affected versions
No affected-version range was extracted from the source record. The vendor advisory is authoritative — check it before change work.
Official advisory · medium-confidence parse· fetched 13 days ago·verify at source
Fixed versions
No fixed release is recorded yet. That does not prove no patch exists — confirm against the vendor advisory.
Official advisory · medium-confidence parse· fetched 13 days ago·verify at source
Mitigation
The source record does not include mitigation steps. That is not a statement that no fix exists — read the vendor advisory below for the authoritative guidance.
Official advisory · medium-confidence parse· fetched 13 days ago·verify at source
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