In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
ethtool: do not perform operations on net devices being unregistered
There is a short period between a net device starts to be unregistered and when it is actually gone. In that time frame ethtool operations could still be performed, which might end up in unwanted or undefined behaviours[1].
Do not allow ethtool operations after a net device starts its unregistration. This patch targets the netlink part as the ioctl one isn't affected: the reference to the net device is taken and the operation is executed within an rtnl lock section and the net device won't be found after unregister.
[1] For example adding Tx queues after unregister ends up in NULL pointer exceptions and UaFs, such as:
BUG: KASAN: use-after-free in kobject_get+0x14/0x90
Read of size 1 at addr ffff88801961248c by task ethtool/755
CPU: 0 PID: 755 Comm: ethtool Not tainted 5.15.0-rc6+ #778
Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.14.0-4.fc34 04/014
Call Trace:
dump_stack_lvl+0x57/0x72
print_address_description.constprop.0+0x1f/0x140
kasan_report.cold+0x7f/0x11b
kobject_get+0x14/0x90
kobject_add_internal+0x3d1/0x450
kobject_init_and_add+0xba/0xf0
netdev_queue_update_kobjects+0xcf/0x200
netif_set_real_num_tx_queues+0xb4/0x310
veth_set_channels+0x1c3/0x550
ethnl_set_channels+0x524/0x610