Bug 2520980 (CVE-2026-74581)

Summary: CVE-2026-74581 kernel: net: ipv6: use-after-free in fib6_rule_suppress due to stale res->rt6 pointer
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security <prodsec-ir-bot>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: high Docs Contact:
Priority: high    
Version: unspecifiedCC: akito5623, mleitner, rhel-process-autobot, watson-tool-maintainers
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security
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Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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Doc Text:
A use-after-free vulnerability was found in the Linux kernel's IPv6 FIB rule lookup path. In fib6_rule_suppress(), when a route is suppressed and released via ip6_rt_put_flags(), the res->rt6 pointer is not cleared. If no later rule supplies a replacement route, fib6_rule_lookup() returns the stale (freed) rt6_info to its caller. The subsequent dst_release() then operates on freed memory, hitting rcuref_put_slowpath(). A local attacker who can configure IPv6 routing/FIB rules could trigger this to cause a denial of service (kernel crash) or potentially escalate privileges.
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-08-21 12:57:57 UTC
A use-after-free vulnerability was found in the Linux kernel's IPv6 FIB rule lookup path. In fib6_rule_suppress(), when a route is suppressed and released via ip6_rt_put_flags(), the res->rt6 pointer is not cleared. If no later rule supplies a replacement route, fib6_rule_lookup() returns the stale (freed) rt6_info to its caller. The subsequent dst_release() then operates on freed memory, hitting rcuref_put_slowpath(). A local attacker who can configure IPv6 routing/FIB rules could trigger this to cause a denial of service (kernel crash) or potentially escalate privileges.

Comment 3 Mauro Matteo Cascella 2026-08-21 17:39:23 UTC
Upstream advisory:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/2026082100-CVE-2026-74581-47ca@gregkh/T/#u

Comment 4 Akiyoshi Kurita 2026-08-22 04:42:04 UTC
The proposed mitigation does not appear to be applicable to the affected RHEL kernels because IPv6 is built directly into the kernel (`CONFIG_IPV6=y`), rather than provided as a loadable kernel module.

Therefore, the following configuration cannot prevent the IPv6 subsystem from being loaded:


install ipv6 /bin/true
blacklist ipv6


Since there is no `ipv6.ko` module to blacklist when `CONFIG_IPV6=y`, this mitigation would not disable the vulnerable IPv6 code path.

A kernel command-line parameter such as:


ipv6.disable=1


would appear to be a more appropriate mitigation for completely disabling IPv6 on these kernels.

Could you please confirm whether the current mitigation guidance is correct for RHEL kernels built with `CONFIG_IPV6=y`?