Executive brief
A vulnerability in the Linux kernel's Hyper-V network driver can cause a system hang when configuring network settings on devices with only one receive queue. This affects systems running Linux on Microsoft Hyper-V, including certain industrial Siemens controllers. An exploit could lead to a complete denial of service, requiring a system reboot to restore operations.
Technical details
A vulnerability exists in the Linux kernel's hv_netvsc driver (drivers/net/hyperv/netvsc_drv.c) due to improper validation of Receive Side Scaling (RSS) configurations. When a device reports only a single receive queue, the driver fails to allocate an RX indirection table; however, the netvsc_set_rxfh() function still accepts RSS hash key updates, leading to a kernel hang. The issue is triggered via ethtool operations to set RSS settings. The fix involves gating netvsc_set_rxfh() to return -EOPNOTSUPP if the indirection table size is zero. Patches have been backported to various stable kernel branches including 6.1.y, 6.6.y, 6.12.y, and 6.18.y.
Affected products
- Linux Linux Kernel 4.11 to 6.18.7
- Siemens SIMATIC S7-1500 CPU 1518-4 PN/DP MFP V3.1.6
- Siemens SIMATIC S7-1500 CPU 1518F-4 PN/DP MFP V3.1.6
- Siemens SIPLUS S7-1500 CPU 1518-4 PN/DP MFP V3.1.6
Timeline
- 2026-02-04: advisory: Initial NVD publication
- 2026-01-23: patched: Patched in various Linux stable branches
- 2026-07-14: advisory: Siemens industrial products confirmed affected
References
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/11dd9a9ef4dc4507a15a69b8511a0013c6c28fa3
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/4cd55c609e85ae2313248ef1a33619a3eef44a16
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/8288136f508e78eb3563e7073975999cf225a2f9
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/82c9039c8ebb715753a40434df714f865a3aec9c
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d23564955811da493f34412d7de60fa268c8cb50
- https://cert-portal.siemens.com/productcert/html/ssa-019113.html