Bug 2516571 (CVE-2026-72444) - CVE-2026-72444 kernel: flow_dissector: check device type before reading ETH_ADDRS
Summary: CVE-2026-72444 kernel: flow_dissector: check device type before reading ETH_A...
Keywords:
Status: NEW
Alias: CVE-2026-72444
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: 2026-08-15 06:19 UTC by OSIDB Bzimport
Modified: 2026-08-19 16:50 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
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Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-08-15 06:19:32 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

flow_dissector: check device type before reading ETH_ADDRS

__skb_flow_dissect() unconditionally reads 12 bytes from eth_hdr(skb)
when FLOW_DISSECTOR_KEY_ETH_ADDRS is requested. This assumes the skb
has a valid Ethernet header at mac_header, which is not always the case.

The problem can be triggered by:
 1. Creating a TUN device in L3 mode (IFF_TUN, hard_header_len=0)
 2. Attaching a multiq qdisc with a flower filter matching on eth_src
 3. Sending a packet through AF_PACKET

Since TUN in L3 mode has no link-layer header, mac_header points to
the L3 data area. The flow dissector reads 12 bytes of uninitialized
skb memory, which then propagates through fl_set_masked_key() and is
used as a rhashtable lookup key in __fl_lookup(), as reported by KMSAN.

Rejecting the filter in the control path (at tc filter add time) is
not feasible because TC filter blocks can be shared between arbitrary
devices -- a filter installed on an Ethernet device may later classify
packets on a headerless device through a shared block. The device
association is not fixed at filter creation time.

Fix this by gating the memcpy on dev->type == ARPHRD_ETHER, which
ensures only true Ethernet-framed packets have their addresses read.
This is more precise than the previous hard_header_len >= 12 check,
which would incorrectly pass for non-Ethernet link types like IPoIB
(ARPHRD_INFINIBAND, hard_header_len=24) and FDDI (hard_header_len=21)
whose L2 headers are not in Ethernet format. Additionally check
skb_mac_header_was_set() to guard against the pathological case where
mac_header is the unset sentinel (~0U), which would cause eth_hdr() to
return a wild pointer.

For the act_mirred redirect case (Ethernet packet redirected to a
non-Ethernet device sharing a TC block), zeroing the key is the correct
behavior: the packet is now being classified on the target device, where
Ethernet address matching is not semantically meaningful.

Note: on non-Ethernet devices, the zeroed key will match a filter
configured with all-zero MAC addresses. This is an improvement over the
previous behavior where uninitialized memory could randomly match any
filter.


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