Linux Kernel CVE-2025-39988

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

can: etas_es58x: populate ndo_change_mtu() to prevent buffer overflow

Sending an PF_PACKET allows to bypass the CAN framework logic and to directly reach the xmit() function of a CAN driver. The only check which is performed by the PF_PACKET framework is to make sure that skb->len fits the interface's MTU.

Unfortunately, because the etas_es58x driver does not populate its net_device_ops->ndo_change_mtu(), it is possible for an attacker to configure an invalid MTU by doing, for example:

$ ip link set can0 mtu 9999

After doing so, the attacker could open a PF_PACKET socket using the ETH_P_CANXL protocol:

socket(PF_PACKET, SOCK_RAW, htons(ETH_P_CANXL));

to inject a malicious CAN XL frames. For example:

struct canxl_frame frame = { .flags = 0xff, .len = 2048, };

The CAN drivers' xmit() function are calling can_dev_dropped_skb() to check that the skb is valid, unfortunately under above conditions, the malicious packet is able to go through can_dev_dropped_skb() checks:

1. the skb->protocol is set to ETH_P_CANXL which is valid (the

function does not check the actual device capabilities).

1. the length is a valid CAN XL length.

And so, es58x_start_xmit() receives a CAN XL frame which it is not able to correctly handle and will thus misinterpret it as a CAN(FD) frame.

This can result in a buffer overflow. For example, using the es581.4 variant, the frame will be dispatched to es581_4_tx_can_msg(), go through the last check at the beginning of this function:

if (can_is_canfd_skb(skb)) return -EMSGSIZE;

and reach this line:

memcpy(tx_can_msg->data, cf->data, cf->len);

Here, cf->len corresponds to the flags field of the CAN XL frame. In our previous example, we set canxl_frame->flags to 0xff. Because the maximum expected length is 8, a buffer overflow of 247 bytes occurs!

Populate net_device_ops->ndo_change_mtu() to ensure that the interface's MTU can not be set to anything bigger than CAN_MTU or CANFD_MTU (depending on the device capabilities). By fixing the root cause, this prevents the buffer overflow.

The Linux kernel's etas_es58x CAN driver (drivers/net/can/usb/etas_es58x), covering ETAS ES581.4 and ES58x-family USB CAN interfaces, is affected on kernel versions prior to those containing the fix. No CPE strings were provided in the input, so exact version ranges are not enumerated here; the fix is distributed across multiple stable-tree commits at git.kernel.org (38c0abad45b1, 72de0facc50a, b26cccd87dcd, c4e582e686c4, cbc1de71766f, e587af2c89ec), indicating backports to several maintained stable branches. Consult your distribution's advisory for the exact patched package version.