CVE-2026-23262 in Linux
Summary
by MITRE • 03/18/2026
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
gve: Fix stats report corruption on queue count change
The driver and the NIC share a region in memory for stats reporting. The NIC calculates its offset into this region based on the total size of the stats region and the size of the NIC's stats.
When the number of queues is changed, the driver's stats region is resized. If the queue count is increased, the NIC can write past the end of the allocated stats region, causing memory corruption. If the queue count is decreased, there is a gap between the driver and NIC stats, leading to incorrect stats reporting.
This change fixes the issue by allocating stats region with maximum size, and the offset calculation for NIC stats is changed to match with the calculation of the NIC.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 05/22/2026
The vulnerability CVE-2026-23262 represents a critical memory corruption issue within the Linux kernel's gve driver component that affects network interface cards utilizing the Google Virtual Ethernet interface. This flaw specifically targets the shared memory region mechanism used for statistics reporting between the driver and the network interface controller, creating a fundamental mismatch in memory management during dynamic queue count adjustments. The vulnerability stems from improper handling of memory allocation and offset calculations when the number of hardware queues is modified, leading to potential system instability and data integrity issues.
The technical implementation of this vulnerability manifests through a race condition in memory management between the driver and NIC components. When queue counts are modified, the driver dynamically resizes the statistics reporting region, but the offset calculation mechanism used by the NIC does not synchronize with the driver's updated memory layout. This discrepancy creates two distinct failure modes: when queue counts increase, the NIC attempts to write beyond allocated memory boundaries, causing buffer overflows that can corrupt adjacent memory regions and potentially lead to arbitrary code execution. When queue counts decrease, the mismatch results in memory gaps where the NIC's statistics are written to incorrect offsets, creating data corruption in the statistics reporting mechanism and leading to false reporting of network performance metrics.
The operational impact of this vulnerability extends beyond simple statistics corruption to potentially compromise system stability and network reliability. Network administrators may observe intermittent connectivity issues, incorrect bandwidth measurements, and inconsistent performance monitoring data that can mask actual network problems. The memory corruption aspect presents a significant security risk as it could be exploited to gain unauthorized access to system memory, potentially allowing attackers to execute malicious code or escalate privileges within the kernel space. This vulnerability particularly affects virtualized environments where Google Virtual Ethernet interfaces are commonly deployed, making it relevant to cloud infrastructure providers and enterprise virtualization platforms.
Mitigation strategies for CVE-2026-23262 should focus on immediate kernel updates that implement the corrected memory allocation approach using maximum size allocation for statistics regions. The fix addresses the underlying issue by ensuring that the statistics reporting memory region is allocated with sufficient capacity to accommodate maximum possible queue configurations, eliminating the need for dynamic resizing during operation. This approach aligns with common security practices outlined in the CWE-129 weakness category, which addresses improper validation of array indices and buffer overflows. Additionally, the solution incorporates changes to offset calculation algorithms to maintain synchronization between driver and NIC memory access patterns, preventing the memory corruption scenarios that could otherwise be exploited through carefully crafted queue modification sequences.
The vulnerability demonstrates the complexity of managing shared memory resources in kernel-level drivers and highlights the importance of maintaining synchronization between hardware and software components during dynamic configuration changes. This issue underscores the critical need for comprehensive testing of memory management scenarios, particularly those involving dynamic resource reallocation, and emphasizes the requirement for robust error handling in kernel drivers. The ATT&CK framework categorizes this vulnerability under privilege escalation and defense evasion techniques, as it could potentially be leveraged to compromise system integrity and maintain persistent access to affected systems through memory corruption exploitation. System administrators should prioritize patching affected kernel versions and implementing monitoring solutions to detect potential exploitation attempts through anomalous network statistics reporting patterns.