Bug 2524430 (CVE-2026-74748)

Summary: CVE-2026-74748 kernel: netfilter: ipset: fix refcount race between list:set GC and swap
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: unspecifiedCC: 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 flaw was found in the Linux kernel's netfilter ipset component. A race condition exists between the list:set garbage collection and set swap operations. This concurrency issue can lead to a kernel bug and a system crash, effectively causing a denial of service. This vulnerability can be triggered by a local attacker or a privileged user performing specific concurrent operations within the ipset module.
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-08-26 14:50:57 UTC 
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

netfilter: ipset: fix refcount race between list:set GC and swap

__ip_set_put_byindex() resolved the index to a set pointer under RCU,
then took ip_set_ref_lock in __ip_set_put() to decrement set->ref.
ip_set_swap() holds that same lock while swapping both the ip_set_list
slots and the two sets' ref counters, so it can interleave between the
dereference and the lock acquisition, leaving the caller to decrement a
set whose reference already moved to the other index and hit
BUG_ON(set->ref == 0). list_set_gc() reaches this from timer softirq,
which the nfnl mutex does not serialize against swap: an expiring
list:set member calls list_set_del() -> ip_set_put_byindex() while
IPSET_CMD_SWAP runs on the referenced sets.

Resolve the index and decrement under ip_set_ref_lock, as ip_set_swap()
already does, keeping the refcount tied to the index rather than to a
stale set pointer.

  kernel BUG at net/netfilter/ipset/ip_set_core.c:685!
  Oops: invalid opcode: 0000 [#1] SMP KASAN NOPTI
  RIP: 0010:ip_set_put_byindex (net/netfilter/ipset/ip_set_core.c:870)
  Call Trace:
   <IRQ>
   list_set_del (net/netfilter/ipset/ip_set_list_set.c:159)
   set_cleanup_entries (net/netfilter/ipset/ip_set_list_set.c:181)
   list_set_gc (net/netfilter/ipset/ip_set_list_set.c:578)
   call_timer_fn (kernel/time/timer.c:1748)
   __run_timers (kernel/time/timer.c:1799 kernel/time/timer.c:2374)
   run_timer_softirq (kernel/time/timer.c:2405)
   </IRQ>
  Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal exception in interrupt
Comment 1 gkamathe 2026-08-27 06:31:30 UTC 
Upstream advisory:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/2026082659-CVE-2026-74748-e77a@gregkh/T