CVE-2026-64190: net: team: fix NULL pointer dereference in team_xmit during mode change

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: 2026-07-20 · updated 2026-10-30
Weakness: CWE-476

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: team: fix NULL pointer dereference in team_xmit during mode change __team_change_mode() clears team->ops with memset() before restoring safe dummy handlers via team_adjust_ops(). A concurrent team_xmit() running under RCU on another CPU can read team->ops.transmit during this window and call a NULL function pointer, crashing the kernel. The race requires a mode change (CAP_NET_ADMIN) concurrent with transmit on the team device. BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000000 Oops: 0010 [#1] SMP KASAN NOPTI RIP: 0010:0x0 Call Trace: team_xmit (drivers/net/team/team_core.c:1853) dev_hard_start_xmit (net/core/dev.c:3904) __dev_queue_xmit (net/core/dev.c:4871) packet_sendmsg (net/packet/af_packet.c:3109) __sys_sendto (net/socket.c:2265) The original code assumed that no ports means no traffic, so mode changes could freely memset()/memcpy() the ops. AF_PACKET with forced carrier breaks that assumption. Prevent the race instead of making it safe: replace memset()/memcpy() with per-field updates that never touch transmit or receive. Those two handlers are managed solely by team_adjust_ops(), which already installs dummies when tx_en_port_count == 0 (always true during mode change since no ports are present). WRITE_ONCE/READ_ONCE prevent store/load tearing on the handler pointers. synchronize_net() before exit_op() drains in-flight readers that may still reference old mode state from before port removal switched the handlers to dummies.

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 3.3 before 6.18.35; from 6.19 before 7.1; 7.1-rc1, 7.1-rc2, 7.1-rc3, 7.1-rc4, 7.1-rc5 — fixed in 6.18.35, 7.1
Linux: 3.3 — fixed in 7.1

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 6.18.35, 7.1; Linux 7.1. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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