CVE-2026-63985: Linux Kernel

High severity, CVSS 7.8. EPSS: 0.1% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ethtool: eeprom: add more safeties to EEPROM Netlink fallback The Netlink fallback path for reading module EEPROM (fallback_set_params()) validates that offset < eeprom_len, but does not check that offset + length stays within eeprom_len. The ioctl equivalent (ethtool_get_any_eeprom() in ioctl.c) has always enforced both bounds: if (eeprom.offset + eeprom.len > total_len) return -EINVAL; This could lead to surprises in both drivers and device FW. Add the missing offset + length validation to fallback_set_params(), mirroring the ioctl. Similarly - ethtool core in general, and ethtool_get_any_eeprom() in particular tries to zero-init all buffers passed to the drivers to avoid any extra work of zeroing things out. eeprom_fallback() uses a plain kmalloc(), change it to zalloc.

Affected products

• Linux Linux Kernel: from 5.13, 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 6.12.93 (fixed in 6.12.93); from 6.13, before 6.18.35 (fixed in 6.18.35); from 6.19, before 7.0.12 (fixed in 7.0.12); …

Published 2026-07-19. Last modified 2026-10-08.