CVE-2025-39814: ice: fix NULL pointer dereference in ice_unplug_aux_dev() on reset

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.5 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.1% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2025-09-16 · updated 2026-10-19
Weakness: CWE-476

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ice: fix NULL pointer dereference in ice_unplug_aux_dev() on reset Issuing a reset when the driver is loaded without RDMA support, will results in a crash as it attempts to remove RDMA's non-existent auxbus device: echo 1 > /sys/class/net/<if>/device/reset BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000008 ... RIP: 0010:ice_unplug_aux_dev+0x29/0x70 [ice] ... Call Trace: <TASK> ice_prepare_for_reset+0x77/0x260 [ice] pci_dev_save_and_disable+0x2c/0x70 pci_reset_function+0x88/0x130 reset_store+0x5a/0xa0 kernfs_fop_write_iter+0x15e/0x210 vfs_write+0x273/0x520 ksys_write+0x6b/0xe0 do_syscall_64+0x79/0x3b0 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e ice_unplug_aux_dev() checks pf->cdev_info->adev for NULL pointer, but pf->cdev_info will also be NULL, leading to the deref in the trace above. Introduce a flag to be set when the creation of the auxbus device is successful, to avoid multiple NULL pointer checks in ice_unplug_aux_dev().

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 6.16 before 6.16.5; 6.17-rc1, 6.17-rc2, 6.17-rc3 — fixed in 6.16.5

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 6.16.5. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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