Bug 2451662 (CVE-2026-23398) - CVE-2026-23398 kernel: icmp: fix NULL pointer dereference in icmp_tag_validation()
Summary: CVE-2026-23398 kernel: icmp: fix NULL pointer dereference in icmp_tag_validat...
Keywords:
Status: NEW
Alias: CVE-2026-23398
Product: Security Response
Classification: Other
Component: vulnerability
Version: unspecified
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
medium
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Product Security
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2026-03-26 11:01 UTC by OSIDB Bzimport
Modified: 2026-03-26 23:51 UTC (History)
0 users

Fixed In Version:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-03-26 11:01:47 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

icmp: fix NULL pointer dereference in icmp_tag_validation()

icmp_tag_validation() unconditionally dereferences the result of
rcu_dereference(inet_protos[proto]) without checking for NULL.
The inet_protos[] array is sparse -- only about 15 of 256 protocol
numbers have registered handlers. When ip_no_pmtu_disc is set to 3
(hardened PMTU mode) and the kernel receives an ICMP Fragmentation
Needed error with a quoted inner IP header containing an unregistered
protocol number, the NULL dereference causes a kernel panic in
softirq context.

 Oops: general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0xdffffc0000000002: 0000 [#1] SMP KASAN NOPTI
 KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000010-0x0000000000000017]
 RIP: 0010:icmp_unreach (net/ipv4/icmp.c:1085 net/ipv4/icmp.c:1143)
 Call Trace:
  <IRQ>
  icmp_rcv (net/ipv4/icmp.c:1527)
  ip_protocol_deliver_rcu (net/ipv4/ip_input.c:207)
  ip_local_deliver_finish (net/ipv4/ip_input.c:242)
  ip_local_deliver (net/ipv4/ip_input.c:262)
  ip_rcv (net/ipv4/ip_input.c:573)
  __netif_receive_skb_one_core (net/core/dev.c:6164)
  process_backlog (net/core/dev.c:6628)
  handle_softirqs (kernel/softirq.c:561)
  </IRQ>

Add a NULL check before accessing icmp_strict_tag_validation. If the
protocol has no registered handler, return false since it cannot
perform strict tag validation.

Comment 1 Praise Ogwuche 2026-03-26 23:42:09 UTC
Upstream advisory:
https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/2026032634-CVE-2026-23398-df1e@gregkh/T


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