CVE-2026-23117 ice: add missing ice_deinit_hw() in devlink reinit path
A missing hardware deinitialization call in the Intel ice driver causes a NULL pointer dereference and system crash during device removal after a failed reload.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Any signed-in user
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2026-23117?
CVE-2026-23117 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 14 Feb 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Official description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
ice: add missing ice_deinit_hw() in devlink reinit path
devlink-reload results in ice_init_hw failed error, and then removing the ice driver causes a NULL pointer dereference.
[ +0.102213] ice 0000:ca:00.0: ice_init_hw failed: -16 ... [ +0.000001] Call Trace: [ +0.000003] <TASK> [ +0.000006] ice_unload+0x8f/0x100 [ice] [ +0.000081] ice_remove+0xba/0x300 [ice]
Commit 1390b8b3d2be ("ice: remove duplicate call to ice_deinit_hw() on error paths") removed ice_deinit_hw() from ice_deinit_dev(). As a result ice_devlink_reinit_down() no longer calls ice_deinit_hw(), but ice_devlink_reinit_up() still calls ice_init_hw(). Since the control queues are not uninitialized, ice_init_hw() fails with -EBUSY.
Add ice_deinit_hw() to ice_devlink_reinit_down() to correspond with ice_init_hw() in ice_devlink_reinit_up().
Weakness: CWE-476
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-23117?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2026-23117?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Is CVE-2026-23117 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-23117 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2026-23117, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-23117, GHSA-6pp9-r78q-5hwx, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-23117.