CVE-2026-98489: In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: atl1c: fix soft lockup on out-of-range tpd_cons read The hardware can report an out-o

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: atl1c: fix soft lockup on out-of-range tpd_cons read The hardware can report an out-o

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: atl1c: fix soft lockup on out-of-range tpd_cons read The hardware can report an out-of-range tpd_cons (seen as 0xffff) while the PCIe link/MAC is resetting. An out-of-range value can never be reached and the loop below would spin forever. To avoid a soft lockup treat it as "nothing new to clean" instead. Reproduced on two machines, same NIC (Qualcomm Atheros AR8151 v2.0, 4-port), triggered by rebooting a Mikrotik CCR2004 PCIe card that the ports are directly linked to: - Ubuntu 26.04.1 LTS, kernel 7.0.0-31-generic. The link-flap precursor, before the lockup was captured with a full trace elsewhere: atl1c 0000:05:00.0 enp5s0f0: NETDEV WATCHDOG: CPU: 4: transmit queue 2 timed out 489984 ms atl1c 0000:05:00.0: MAC state machine can't be idle since disabled for 10ms second atl1c 0000:05:00.0: atl1c: enp5s0f0 NIC Link is Up<65535 Mbps Full Duplex> 65535 (0xffff) here is the same value tpd_cons reads back once the loop below gets stuck. - Proxmox VE, kernel 7.0.14-11-pve. Same NIC/trigger, this time caught by the soft lockup watchdog with a full stack trace: watchdog: BUG: soft lock

Description from the National Vulnerability Database, published by 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

What it means for a small business

Linux is on the computers, phones or browsers your team uses every day. Turn on automatic updates and restart: most of these fixes only take effect after a restart.

How likely is an attack? The Exploit Prediction Scoring System, run by FIRST (the global association of security response teams), puts the odds of this one being exploited in the next 30 days at 0.18%, higher than 7% of CVEs. That’s low, but low isn’t zero, and the odds jump the day someone publishes an exploit. Scored October 28, 2026, updated daily.

Check your own setup

Website check: reads what your site runs from the outside (WordPress version, plugins it can see, old server software) and matches it against this database.
Server check: what your web server says about itself, and whether that version has known flaws.

Sources

Part of the Huttenlocher Technologies vulnerability database, refreshed twice a day from CISA and the NVD. The title, category and plain-language guidance are ours; check the linked record before acting on a detail. This is general guidance, not a review of your systems.

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