Bug 2531346 (CVE-2026-88831)

Summary: CVE-2026-88831 busybox: busybox: httpd silently fails open when IP deny rules contain invalid CIDR prefix lengths
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security <prodsec-ir-bot>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
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Priority: medium    
Version: unspecifiedCC: security-response-team
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security
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Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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BusyBox httpd IP deny rules with invalid CIDR prefix lengths fail open, leaving a parsed IP with a zeroed mask so the rule matches no clients.
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-09-10 09:46:02 UTC
A vulnerability was found in the BusyBox httpd IP-based access control list (ACL) parser (networking/httpd.c). When a D: (deny) rule is configured with a syntactically invalid CIDR prefix length, such as /999, the parser does not validate the mask value. Instead of rejecting the malformed rule or defaulting to a restrictive interpretation, the resulting miscalculated network mask silently fails to match the intended IP address range.

This means that a deny rule intended to block an entire subnet may effectively deny no traffic at all. The silent failure mode violates the principle of failing securely and could remain undetected for extended periods.