CVE-2026-63990
Received Received - Intake

Bonding Driver Refuses CAN Device Enslavement

Vulnerability report for CVE-2026-63990, including description, CVSS score, EPSS score, affected products, exploitability, helpful resources, and attack-flow context.

Publication date: 2026-07-19

Last updated on: 2026-07-19

Assigner: kernel.org

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: bonding: refuse to enslave CAN devices syzbot reported a kernel paging request crash in can_rx_unregister() inside net/can/af_can.c. The crash occurs because a virtual CAN device (vxcan) is being enslaved to a bonding master. During the enslavement process, the bonding driver mutates and modifies the network device states to fit an Ethernet-like aggregation model. However, CAN devices operate on a completely different Layer 2 architecture, relying on the CAN mid-layer private data structure (can_ml_priv) instead of standard Ethernet structures. Since bonding does not initialize or maintain these CAN structures, subsequent operations on the half-enslaved interface (such as closing associated sockets via isotp_release) lead to a null-pointer dereference when accessing the CAN receiver lists. Bonding CAN interfaces is architecturally invalid as CAN lacks MAC addresses, ARP capabilities, and standard Ethernet link-layer mechanisms. While generic loopback devices are blocked globally in net/core/dev.c, virtual CAN devices bypass this check because they do not carry the IFF_LOOPBACK flag, despite acting as local software-loopbacks. Fix this by explicitly blocking network devices of type ARPHRD_CAN from being enslaved at the very beginning of bond_enslave(). This prevents illegal state mutations, eliminates the resulting KASAN crashes, and avoids potential memory leaks from incomplete socket cleanups. As the CAN support has been added a long time after bonding the Fixes-tag points to the introduction of ARPHRD_CAN that would have needed a specific handling in bonding_main.c.

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Meta Information

Published
2026-07-19
Last Modified
2026-07-19
Generated
2026-07-20
AI Q&A
2026-07-19
EPSS Evaluated
N/A
NVD
EUVD

Affected Vendors & Products

Showing 1 associated CPE
Vendor Product Version / Range
linux linux_kernel *

Helpful Resources

Exploitability

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CWE ID Description
CWE-UNKNOWN

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Executive Summary

This vulnerability involves a kernel crash in the Linux bonding driver when attempting to enslave virtual CAN devices (vxcan). The bonding driver incorrectly modifies CAN device states for Ethernet-like aggregation, but CAN devices rely on different structures. This leads to a null-pointer dereference and crashes when accessing CAN receiver lists.

Detection Guidance

Check if any CAN devices are enslaved to a bonding interface. Inspect bonding configurations with commands like 'cat /proc/net/bonding' or 'ip link show master bondX'. Look for errors in kernel logs related to can_rx_unregister or bonding operations.

Impact Analysis

If exploited, this vulnerability could cause system crashes (kernel panic) when bonding interfaces with CAN devices. It may also lead to memory leaks from incomplete socket cleanups and potential denial-of-service conditions on affected systems.

Compliance Impact

This vulnerability does not directly affect compliance with standards like GDPR or HIPAA as it pertains to a Linux kernel networking issue involving CAN devices and bonding drivers. Compliance impacts would depend on system-specific implementations and data handling, which are not addressed by this vulnerability.

Mitigation Strategies

Do not enslave CAN devices to any bonding interface. Remove any existing enslavement with 'ip link set canX nomaster'. Update the Linux kernel to a patched version where bonding explicitly blocks CAN devices.

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