CVE-2026-43100 bridge: guard local VLAN-0 FDB helpers against NULL vlan group
A local attacker can cause a kernel crash by creating a bridge with specific options when VLAN filtering is disabled, leading to denial of service.
- 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-2026-43100?
CVE-2026-43100 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 6 May 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:
bridge: guard local VLAN-0 FDB helpers against NULL vlan group
When CONFIG_BRIDGE_VLAN_FILTERING is not set, br_vlan_group() and nbp_vlan_group() return NULL (br_private.h stub definitions). The BR_BOOLOPT_FDB_LOCAL_VLAN_0 toggle code is compiled unconditionally and reaches br_fdb_delete_locals_per_vlan_port() and br_fdb_insert_locals_per_vlan_port(), where the NULL vlan group pointer is dereferenced via list_for_each_entry(v, &vg->vlan_list, vlist).
The observed crash is in the delete path, triggered when creating a bridge with IFLA_BR_MULTI_BOOLOPT containing BR_BOOLOPT_FDB_LOCAL_VLAN_0 via RTM_NEWLINK. The insert helper has the same bug pattern.
Oops: general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0xdffffc0000000056: 0000 [#1] KASAN NOPTI KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x00000000000002b0-0x00000000000002b7] RIP: 0010:br_fdb_delete_locals_per_vlan+0x2b9/0x310 Call Trace: br_fdb_toggle_local_vlan_0+0x452/0x4c0 br_toggle_fdb_local_vlan_0+0x31/0x80 net/bridge/br.c:276 br_boolopt_toggle net/bridge/br.c:313 br_boolopt_multi_toggle net/bridge/br.c:364 br_changelink net/bridge/br_netlink.c:1542 br_dev_newlink net/bridge/br_netlink.c:1575
Add NULL checks for the vlan group pointer in both helpers, returning early when there are no VLANs to iterate. This matches the existing pattern used by other bridge FDB functions such as br_fdb_add() and br_fdb_delete().
Weakness: CWE-476
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-43100?
It affects 1 product.
Products include Linux kernel.
How do I fix CVE-2026-43100?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Is CVE-2026-43100 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-43100 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2026-43100, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-43100, GHSA-r5qw-5m8q-6774, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-43100.