Bug 2546518 (CVE-2026-98255) - CVE-2026-98255 kernel: tcp: exclude old ACKs from tcp fast path
Summary: CVE-2026-98255 kernel: tcp: exclude old ACKs from tcp fast path
Keywords:
Status: NEW
Alias: CVE-2026-98255
Product: Security Response
Classification: Other
Component: vulnerability
Version: unspecified
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
medium
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Product Security DevOps Team
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2026-10-06 09:37 UTC by OSIDB Bzimport
Modified: 2026-10-10 17:59 UTC (History)
17 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed:
Embargoed:


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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-10-06 09:37:52 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

tcp: exclude old ACKs from tcp fast path

Exclude old ACKs before SND.UNA from the tcp fast path
as well as ACKs after SND.NXT.

Such ACKs will fall through to the slow path, where tcp_ack()
performs the appropriate validation and challenge ACK handling
according to RFC5961 and Commit 3d501dd326fb1c7 ("tcp: do not
accept ACK of bytes we never sent").

This prevents old ACKs from being accepted
or modifying connection state as part of the fast path before
appropriate ACK validation is applied.
In particular, this prevents payload carried by a segment with
an excessively old ACK from advancing RCV.NXT before the ACK
is rejected.


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