diff --git a/net/netlink/attr.c b/net/netlink/attr.c
index c83fea7da9a8..56c3ce7fe29a 100644
--- a/net/netlink/attr.c
+++ b/net/netlink/attr.c
@@ -83,6 +83,12 @@ static int validate_nla(struct nlattr *nla, int maxtype,
 		if (attrlen < NLA_ALIGN(pt->len) + NLA_HDRLEN + nla_len(nla))
 			return -ERANGE;
 		break;
+	case NLA_NESTED:
+		/* a nested attributes is allowed to be empty; if its not,
+		 * it must have a size of at least NLA_HDRLEN.
+		 */
+		if (attrlen == 0)
+			break;
 	default:
 		if (pt->len)
 			minlen = pt->len;