CVE-2026-72342

A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's net/mlx5e component. A race condition during the registration of the HV VHCA statistics agent can occur when the agent is published and an asynchronous control invalidation is scheduled before its associated data structures are fully initialized. This timing issue can lead to the system attempting to access uninitialized memory or execute an invalid operation, resulting in a system crash and denial of service.

A race in mlx5e HV VHCA stats agent registration can allow the asynchronous control invalidation path to run before stats_agent.work and stats_agent.agent are fully initialized. This can operate on an uninitialized delayed_work object, enqueue a timer with a NULL function pointer, reinitialize a timer that is already queued, or later dereference a NULL agent pointer in the stats worker. The direct effect is a kernel crash or hang, but the timer hlist corruption makes this a memory corruption candidate rather than a pure warning only issue. For the CVSS the PR:L is used in the paranoid score because delegated network administration, a service account, or a reduced root environment may be able to trigger device reconfiguration or driver reload paths, although typical systems require administrator control. The issue is not directly network reachable and depends on Mellanox mlx5 HV VHCA support and a narrow asynchronous initialization race. Impact is at least local denial of service and in the worst still defensible case may allow confidentiality or integrity impact due to memory corruption.

The CVSS score(s) listed for this vulnerability do not reflect the associated product's status, and are included for informational purposes to better understand the severity of this vulnerability.

Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options don't meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base or stability.