CVE-2026-53214 ipv6: Fix a potential NPD in cleanup_prefix_route()

Medium 5.5 Published 25 Jun 2026 Updated 25 Jun 2026

A local attacker can trigger a kernel crash via IPv6 address deletion due to a null pointer dereference in the routing cleanup logic.

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-2026-53214?

CVE-2026-53214 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 25 Jun 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:

ipv6: Fix a potential NPD in cleanup_prefix_route()

addrconf_get_prefix_route() can return the fib6_null_entry sentinel entry which has a NULL fib6_table pointer. Therefore, before setting the route's expiration time, check that we are not working with this entry, as otherwise a NPD will be triggered [1].

Note that the other callers of addrconf_get_prefix_route() are not susceptible to this bug:

1. addrconf_prefix_rcv(): Requests a route with the 'RTF_ADDRCONF | RTF_PREFIX_RT' flags which are not set on fib6_null_entry.

2. modify_prefix_route(): Fixed by commit a747e02430df ("ipv6: avoid possible NULL deref in modify_prefix_route()").

3. __ipv6_ifa_notify(): Calls ip6_del_rt() which specifically checks for fib6_null_entry and returns an error.

[1] Oops: general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0xdffffc0000000006: 0000 [#1] SMP KASAN KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000030-0x0000000000000037] [...] Call Trace: <TASK> __kasan_check_byte (mm/kasan/common.c:573) lock_acquire.part.0 (kernel/locking/lockdep.c:5842 (discriminator 1)) _raw_spin_lock_bh (kernel/locking/spinlock.c:182 (discriminator 1)) cleanup_prefix_route (net/ipv6/addrconf.c:1280) ipv6_del_addr (net/ipv6/addrconf.c:1342) inet6_addr_del.isra.0 (net/ipv6/addrconf.c:3119) inet6_rtm_deladdr (net/ipv6/addrconf.c:4812) rtnetlink_rcv_msg (net/core/rtnetlink.c:6997) netlink_rcv_skb (net/netlink/af_netlink.c:2555) netlink_unicast (net/netlink/af_netlink.c:1344) netlink_sendmsg (net/netlink/af_netlink.c:1899) __sock_sendmsg (net/socket.c:802 (discriminator 4)) ____sys_sendmsg (net/socket.c:2698) ___sys_sendmsg (net/socket.c:2752) __sys_sendmsg (net/socket.c:2784) do_syscall_64 (arch/x86/entry/syscall_64.c:63 arch/x86/entry/syscall_64.c:94) entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe (arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:121)

Weakness: CWE-476

Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-53214?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2026-53214?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Is CVE-2026-53214 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-53214 in the wild and no public exploit code.

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

Also known as AZL-90362, BELL-CVE-2026-53214, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-53214, GHSA-5r3h-v82j-r7rr, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2404-CVE-2026-53214, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-53214.