CVE-2026-99043
Received
Received - Intake
Memory Leak in Linux Kernel Ice Driver
Vulnerability report for CVE-2026-99043, including description, CVSS score, EPSS score, affected products, exploitability, helpful resources, and attack-flow context.
Publication date: 2026-10-23
Last updated on: 2026-10-23
Assigner: kernel.org
Description
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
ice: fix metadata_dst refcount handling on representor teardown
ice_eswitch_release_repr() uses metadata_dst_free() to release the
representor's metadata_dst. metadata_dst_free() directly frees the
underlying memory without checking the dst_entry refcount.
When ice_eswitch_port_start_xmit() processes a packet, it takes a
reference via dst_hold() and attaches the metadata_dst to the skb.
If the representor is torn down while packets are still queued on
the lower device (e.g. in a qdisc), the metadata_dst is freed while
references are still held.
Use dst_release() instead, which correctly decrements the refcount
and only frees the object when all references are dropped. The dst
subsystem already handles metadata_dst cleanup in dst_destroy() when
DST_METADATA is set.
Other drivers sharing this pattern (nfp, airoha, bnxt) already use
dst_release() for their metadata_dst lifecycle.
CVSS Scores
EPSS Scores
| Probability: | |
| Percentile: |
Meta Information
Affected Vendors & Products
| Vendor | Product | Version / Range |
|---|---|---|
| Linux | Linux | f5396b8a663f7a78ee5b75a47ee524b40795b265 |
| Linux | Linux | f5396b8a663f7a78ee5b75a47ee524b40795b265 |
| Linux | Linux | f5396b8a663f7a78ee5b75a47ee524b40795b265 |
| Linux | Linux | f5396b8a663f7a78ee5b75a47ee524b40795b265 |
| Linux | Linux | f5396b8a663f7a78ee5b75a47ee524b40795b265 |
| Linux | Linux | 5.16 |
Helpful Resources
Exploitability
CWE
KEV
| CWE ID | Description |
|---|---|
| CWE-UNKNOWN |
