CVE-2026-97982 net: ethernet: cortina: Fix budget accounting
A logic error in the Cortina Ethernet driver causes NAPI budget accounting issues, potentially leading to a denial of service by keeping the poll scheduled indefinitely.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2026-97982?
CVE-2026-97982 is a denial of service vulnerability in Linux, published on 25 Sep 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:
net: ethernet: cortina: Fix budget accounting
The gmac_rx() function returns the remaining NAPI budget, but its caller treats the return value as the number of packets received. An idle poll therefore reports a full budget and remains scheduled.
Return the number of received packets instead. Preserve the existing free queue refill accounting by adding that count directly; continuing to subtract it from the budget would invert the refill behavior.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-97982?
How do I fix CVE-2026-97982?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.
Is CVE-2026-97982 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-97982 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as AZL-104879, BELL-CVE-2026-97982, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-97982, GHSA-f9c6-x48g-gfm4, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-97982.