CVE-2026-98965
HighCVSS 7.5Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
Low risk10th percentile - higher than 10% of all known CVEs
Summary
In the Linux kernel, a bug was fixed in the ice driver where using writel_relaxed() for Tx doorbell updates did not provide proper write ordering on arm64. This introduced a race where the NIC could start transmitting before the dql->num_queued update was visible, triggering BUG_ON in dql_completed() and a kernel crash.
Risk Assessment
On arm64 systems with Intel E810 NICs under sustained network load, a kernel BUG can occur, causing service unavailability. The vulnerability primarily affects environments with this hardware and architecture.
Recommendation
Update the Linux kernel to a version containing the fix that restores writel() in the ice driver transmit path. If immediate update is not possible, consider reducing load or avoiding E810 configurations on arm64.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel ice driver
See all- CVE-2026-23353Medium
A bug was fixed in the Linux kernel's ice driver that caused a crash (NULL pointer dereference) during the ethtool offline loopback test. The crash occurred because libeth was not initialized for the rx ring in loopback VSIs. The fix treats ICE_VSI_LB VSIs more like normal PF VSIs by giving them a dummy q_vector, allowing the napi struct to be passed to libeth_rx_fq_create().
- CVE-2026-23210Medium
In the Linux kernel, the ice driver (Intel E800 NIC) has a race condition during VSI rebuild. PTP periodic work is queued before the VSI rebuild completes, causing a NULL pointer dereference on vsi->rx_rings and a kernel oops.
- CVE-2023-53102High
In the Linux kernel, a bug was found in the ice driver (Intel NIC) where the txq IRQ is disabled only after flushing the hardware, rendering the flush ineffective. This allows NAPI to run while the xsk_pool pointer is still valid but the software ring of xdp_buff pointers has already been freed, causing a NULL pointer dereference and kernel panic.
- CVE-2024-46765High
In the Linux kernel, the ice driver (Intel network card) has a synchronization issue between XDP configuration and PF reset. Lack of a mutex protecting ice_xdp() and ice_vsi_rebuild() can lead to a race condition and a kernel crash (NULL pointer dereference). The vulnerability is fixed by adding the xdp_state_lock mutex and a VSI state flag.
Original NVD description (English source)
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ice: Restore Ordered MMIO Writes for Tx Doorbells The DQL accounting state which tracks the number of bytes queued for the NIC to transmit, namely dql->num_queued, is updated by the ICE driver when it invokes __netdev_tx_sent_queue(). Subsequently the driver updates the hardware queue tail allowing the NIC to begin processing the work queue. The queue accounting update should be ordered before the NIC begins transmitting descriptors. The transmit path currently updates the hardware doorbell using writel_relaxed(), which (on arm64) does not provide the same ordering guarantees between writes to normal memory and writes to MMIO registers that writel() does. This introduces a potential race where the NIC begins transmitting descriptors before the dql->num_queued update is globally visible. If the NIC finishes before the update is observed by dql_completed(), it detects an invalid state where more bytes have been completed than have been queued. When this happens the following BUG_ON is triggered. BUG_ON(count > num_queued - dql->num_completed); This has been observed and manifests as the following crash (note that the trace has been trimmed) in an environment with sustained network load that uses an Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller E810-XXV for SFP (rev 02) on an arm64 machine. Replacing writel_relaxed() with writel() in a test kernel eliminated the crash in the user's workload, which previously reproduced the issue reliably. kernel BUG at lib/dynamic_queue_limits.c:99 Internal error: Oops - BUG: 00000000f2000800 [#1] SMP pc : dql_completed+0x268/0x2a0 lr : ice_clean_tx_irq+0x1d4/0x620 [ice] Call trace: dql_completed+0x268/0x2a0 (P) ice_napi_poll+0x94/0x520 [ice] __napi_poll+0x48/0x3f0 net_rx_action+0x194/0x420 This restores the behaviour prior to commit ccde82e90946 ("ice: add E830 Earliest TxTime First Offload support"), which changed the notification mechanism from writel() to writel_relaxed().
Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS

