# CVE-2026-23353: ice: fix crash in ethtool offline loopback test

> A local attacker can crash the Linux kernel by triggering a NULL pointer dereference in the ice driver during an ethtool loopback test.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **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:** Yes
- **Published:** 25 Mar 2026
- **Updated:** 26 Oct 2026
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2026-23353, GHSA-xv28-8q23-rhh6, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-23353

## What is CVE-2026-23353?

CVE-2026-23353 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 25 Mar 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: fix crash in ethtool offline loopback test

Since the conversion of ice to page pool, the ethtool loopback test
crashes:

 BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 000000000000000c
 #PF: supervisor write access in kernel mode
 #PF: error_code(0x0002) - not-present page
 PGD 1100f1067 P4D 0
 Oops: Oops: 0002 [#1] SMP NOPTI
 CPU: 23 UID: 0 PID: 5904 Comm: ethtool Kdump: loaded Not tainted 6.19.0-0.rc7.260128g1f97d9dcf5364.49.eln154.x86_64 #1 PREEMPT(lazy)
 Hardware name: [...]
 RIP: 0010:ice_alloc_rx_bufs+0x1cd/0x310 [ice]
 Code: 83 6c 24 30 01 66 41 89 47 08 0f 84 c0 00 00 00 41 0f b7 dc 48 8b 44 24 18 48 c1 e3 04 41 bb 00 10 00 00 48 8d 2c 18 8b 04 24 <89> 45 0c 41 8b 4d 00 49 d3 e3 44 3b 5c 24 24 0f 83 ac fe ff ff 44
 RSP: 0018:ff7894738aa1f768 EFLAGS: 00010246
 RAX: 0000000000000000 RBX: 0000000000000000 RCX: 0000000000000000
 RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 0000000000000700 RDI: 0000000000000000
 RBP: 0000000000000000 R08: ff16dcae79880200 R09: 0000000000000019
 R10: 0000000000000001 R11: 0000000000001000 R12: 0000000000000000
 R13: 0000000000000000 R14: 0000000000000000 R15: ff16dcae6c670000
 FS:  00007fcf428850c0(0000) GS:ff16dcb149710000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000
 CS:  0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033
 CR2: 000000000000000c CR3: 0000000121227005 CR4: 0000000000773ef0
 PKRU: 55555554
 Call Trace:
  <TASK>
  ice_vsi_cfg_rxq+0xca/0x460 [ice]
  ice_vsi_cfg_rxqs+0x54/0x70 [ice]
  ice_loopback_test+0xa9/0x520 [ice]
  ice_self_test+0x1b9/0x280 [ice]
  ethtool_self_test+0xe5/0x200
  __dev_ethtool+0x1106/0x1a90
  dev_ethtool+0xbe/0x1a0
  dev_ioctl+0x258/0x4c0
  sock_do_ioctl+0xe3/0x130
  __x64_sys_ioctl+0xb9/0x100
  do_syscall_64+0x7c/0x700
  entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e
  [...]

It crashes because we have not initialized libeth for the rx ring.

Fix it by treating ICE_VSI_LB VSIs slightly more like normal PF VSIs and
letting them have a q_vector. It's just a dummy, because the loopback
test does not use interrupts, but it contains a napi struct that can be
passed to libeth_rx_fq_create() called from ice_vsi_cfg_rxq() ->
ice_rxq_pp_create().

Weakness: CWE-476 (NULL Pointer Dereference)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-23353?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2026-23353?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2026-23353 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-23353 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

- [CVE-2026-53266](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53266/): Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-6282](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-6282/): Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2022-0185](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-0185/): Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-2094](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-2094/): Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2026-53362](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53362/): Linux Kernel Unspecified (high 7.8, exploited in the wild)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2026-23353 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-23353 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 25 Mar 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-23353 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Linux kernel. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-23353/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-23353/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-23353
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-23353
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-23353

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-23353/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.