CVE-2026-53337: Linux Kernel

Medium severity, CVSS 5.5. EPSS: 0.1% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: bonding: fix NULL pointer dereference in bond_do_ioctl() In bond_do_ioctl(), slave_dev is obtained via __dev_get_by_name() which can return NULL if the requested interface name does not exist. However, the subsequent slave_dbg() call is placed before the NULL check: slave_dev = __dev_get_by_name(net, ifr->ifr_slave); slave_dbg(bond_dev, slave_dev, "slave_dev=%p:\n", slave_dev); //here if (!slave_dev) return -ENODEV; The slave_dbg() macro expands to netdev_dbg(bond_dev, "(slave %s): " fmt, (slave_dev)->name, ...) which unconditionally dereferences slave_dev->name before the NULL check is performed. This results in a NULL pointer dereference kernel oops when a user calls bonding ioctl (e.g. SIOCBONDENSLAVE, SIOCBONDRELEASE, etc.) with a non-existent slave interface name. This is reachable from userspace via the bonding ioctl interface with CAP_NET_ADMIN capability, making it a potential local denial-of-service vector. Fix by moving the slave_dbg() call after the NULL check.

Affected products

• Linux Linux Kernel: from 5.3, before 5.10.259 (fixed in 5.10.259); from 5.11, before 5.15.210 (fixed in 5.15.210); from 5.16, before 6.1.176 (fixed in 6.1.176); from 6.2, before 6.6.143 (fixed in 6.6.143); from 6.7, before 6.12.94 (fixed in 6.12.94); from 6.13, before 6.18.36 (fixed in 6.18.36); …

Published 2026-07-01. Last modified 2026-07-23.