Bug 2554869 (CVE-2026-98441)
| Summary: | CVE-2026-98441 kernel: net/sched: act_ct: avoid modifying shared unconfirmed ct entry | ||
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| Product: | [Other] Security Response | Reporter: | OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport> |
| Component: | vulnerability | Assignee: | Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev> |
| Status: | NEW --- | QA Contact: | |
| Severity: | medium | Docs Contact: | |
| Priority: | medium | ||
| Version: | unspecified | CC: | akhatavk, aos-team-art-private, asdas, dpaolell, jdelft, jupierce, lgarciaa, mbiarnes, ppalepu, ppostler, prdhamdh, rhel-process-autobot, sghai, sidsharm, suppawar, vlaad, watson-tool-maintainers |
| Target Milestone: | --- | Keywords: | Security |
| Target Release: | --- | ||
| Hardware: | All | ||
| OS: | Linux | ||
| Whiteboard: | |||
| Fixed In Version: | Doc Type: | --- | |
| Doc Text: |
A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's traffic control conntrack action module (act_ct). An attacker capable of sending network traffic through affected packet filters could trigger a Denial of Service (DoS) or kernel memory corruption. This issue arises when cloned network packets sharing an unconfirmed connection tracking entry are modified, corrupting extension pointers during packet processing. This improper handling results in a use-after-free (UAF) condition upon cleanup, causing the operating system to crash.
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Story Points: | --- |
| Clone Of: | Environment: | ||
| Last Closed: | Type: | --- | |
| Regression: | --- | Mount Type: | --- |
| Documentation: | --- | CRM: | |
| Verified Versions: | Category: | --- | |
| oVirt Team: | --- | RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host: | |
| Cloudforms Team: | --- | Target Upstream Version: | |
| Embargoed: | |||
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net/sched: act_ct: avoid modifying shared unconfirmed ct entry In a case where skb with an unconfirmed ct entry gets cloned, we may end up processing both again but with different sets of extensions. The series of events: 1. The first clone wants to commit and runs the helpers wiring up the extension pointer into the expectation list. 2. Then it looses the confirmation keeping the entry unconfirmed. 3. Second clone now wants to commit labels or run NAT and adds the new extension for that breaking the pointer in the expectation list causing UAF on the destruction path later. While this is possible to trigger, there should be no practical network pipeline where we need to process both clones without modifications in the same zone. So, let's just reset the entry in case for some reason we got an skb with a shared one. This doesn't affect any known use cases, but avoids any potential problems with sharing and modification of the unconfirmed ct entry. Unlike openvswitch module, act_ct allows for NAT without commit. Changing that would be a uAPI break. So, act_ct needs to reset on NAT regardless of the commit flag to avoid reallocation of the extension space. This, however, doesn't really change the picture for sensible networking cases as there should be no need to run the same packet twice (before and after the clone) through conntrack without packet header or zone changes and without commit. The fixes tag points to the introduction of helpers, since that's the main UAF trigger for the sharing.