UBUNTU-CVE-2026-80993: Medium severity ubuntu/linux-hwe-edge vulnerability
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: phylink: correctly validate returned PCS in phylinkinbandcaps In phylinkinbandcaps(), the PCS returned by macselectpcs is only checked if NULL but macselectpcs can also return an error pointer. This can cause a kernel panic as phylinkpcsinbandcaps() only checks if passed PCS is not NULL and directly dereference ops from the phylinkpcs struct. Use the ISERRORNULL macro to address both case where the returned PCS can be NULL or an error pointer and prevent a kernel panic.
Affected Software
Remediation
Recommended actions to resolve this vulnerability, in priority order.
- Compensating control
In phylink_inband_caps(), use the IS_ERR_OR_NULL macro to validate the PCS returned by mac_select_pcs before passing it to phylink_pcs_inband_caps(), handling both NULL and error-pointer returns to prevent kernel panic.