CVE-2026-52924
CriticalCVSS 9.8Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
Low risk43th percentile - higher than 43% of all known CVEs
Summary
A use-after-free vulnerability was found in the Linux kernel's SCTP implementation. When handling a Stale Cookie error (transition from COOKIE_ECHOED to COOKIE_WAIT), the outqueue is not purged, leaving stale scheduler pointers. An attacker can trigger a kernel crash by sending a crafted SCTP packet.
Risk Assessment
A local unprivileged attacker can cause a kernel panic by sending a specially crafted SCTP packet with a Stale Cookie error. This can lead to denial of service, disrupting network services and system availability.
Recommendation
Immediately update the Linux kernel to a version containing the fix (commit that resolves the issue). If updating is not possible, consider disabling SCTP support (e.g., modprobe -r sctp) or restricting access to SCTP ports via firewall.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
See all- CVE-2026-43603Medium
A NULL pointer dereference in the Linux GPU driver could potentially lead to a kernel crash. This may result in a denial of service on the affected system.
- CVE-2026-99270Unknown
A use-after-free (UAF) vulnerability exists in the Linux kernel's reqsk_timer_handler() function. When TCP socket migration fails at inet_ehash_insert(), the code jumps to the no_ownership label and immediately frees the new reqsk via __reqsk_free() without stopping its timer, potentially leading to a UAF.
- CVE-2026-99269Unknown
In the Linux kernel sched_ext scheduler, a task can be found on a non-local DSQ while the CPU that dispatched it is still running ops.dequeue() and hasn't cleared SCX_OPSS_DISPATCHING. The DSQ consume and move paths don't wait for dispatch to finish and can operate on the task concurrently with the dispatcher. The fix adds scx_wait_dispatching() before operating on the task.
- CVE-2026-99268Unknown
In io_uring with IORING_SETUP_DEFER_TASKRUN, completions are queued as local work and only become CQEs when the submitter enters the kernel to wait for events. io_uring_poll() reports EPOLLIN if local work is pending, but only if the work exists at call time; after DEFER_TASKRUN was added, the ->poll_wq wakeup was replaced by directly waking the submitter, so poll() can sleep despite pending work. The fix wakes ->poll_wq when the first entry is put on the work list, using an RCU callback when needed.
- CVE-2026-99267Unknown
In io_uring NAPI with dynamic tracking, a NAPI id not seen for a minute should be dropped from the ring's busy-poll list. However, the timeout is computed incorrectly — SEC_CONVERSION is used instead of the number of jiffies per second, giving about eight years for HZ=1000 and overflowing on 32-bit systems. As a result, entries are never removed and every wait polls all historical ids.
- CVE-2026-99266Unknown
In io_uring zcrx, io_zcrx_queue_cqe() computes the buffer offset in its area from net_iov_idx(), which is an unsigned int, so the shift is done in 32 bits and only the result is widened to the u64 placed in the CQE. An area can be up to 1 TB, so for every niov beyond the first 4 GB the CQE points the application at a buffer 4 GB (or a multiple) below the correct one. The application reads wrong data and returns a buffer it doesn't own via the refill queue while the real one is never given back.
- CVE-2026-99265Unknown
In io_uring/openclose, io_pipe_fixed() installs both ends of the pipe in the fixed file table, drops ->uring_lock, and copies the slot numbers to the application. If that faults, it takes the lock again and removes whatever is in these slots. If the request is run by io-wq, the lock really is dropped and the slots are visible to others; by the time the error path gets to them, they may have been closed and reused (by IORING_OP_CLOSE, direct open/accept, or IORING_REGISTER_FILES_UPDATE), causing removal of a file unrelated to the failed request. The fix performs the copy with the lock held.
- CVE-2026-99264Unknown
A bug was fixed in the Linux kernel's io_uring/net handling of recv retries on uncommitted buffers. When a receive was retried after a partial transfer, the kernel could hand out buffer memory that the retried request was still writing to, causing data overwrites. The request is now completed with the bytes received instead of retried, and MSG_WAITALL is no longer honoured for incremental buffers or multi-buffer bundles.
- CVE-2026-99263Unknown
In io_uring/poll, if a wakeup sets IO_POLL_RETRY_FLAG between the owning task consuming the existing instance of IO_POLL_RETRY_FLAG and the loop check in io_poll_check_events(), request processing stalls until an unrelated wakeup arrives. The fix uses atomic_cmpxchg instead of atomic_sub_return to guarantee both the count v and poll_refs are 0 and no wakeups are missed.
- CVE-2026-99262Unknown
In io_uring/timeout, an IORING_OP_TIMEOUT run by io-wq due to IOSQE_ASYNC has the same problem as poll, futex, and waitid. io_wq_submit_work() checks IO_WQ_WORK_CANCEL only once before issuing the request; a cancel in between flags the work, gets -EALREADY, and searches ->timeout_list in vain while the worker adds the request and starts the timer. Nobody checks the flag again and the timeout runs its course, and at ring exit a task can get stuck for the full duration. The fix checks the flag under ->timeout_lock and fails the request if set.
Original NVD description (English source)
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: sctp: purge outqueue on stale COOKIE-ECHO handling sctp_stream_update() is only invoked when the association is moved into COOKIE_WAIT during association setup/reconfiguration. In this path, the outbound stream scheduler state (stream->out_curr) is expected to be clean, since no user data should have been transmitted yet unless the state machine has already partially progressed. However, a corner case exists in sctp_sf_do_5_2_6_stale(): when a Stale Cookie ERROR is received, the association is rolled back from COOKIE_ECHOED to COOKIE_WAIT. In this scenario, user data may already have been queued and even bundled with the COOKIE-ECHO chunk. During the rollback, sctp_stream_update() frees the old stream table and installs a new one, but it does not invalidate stream->out_curr. As a result, out_curr may still point to a freed sctp_stream_out entry from the previous stream state. Later, SCTP scheduler dequeue paths (FCFS, RR, PRIO, etc.) rely on stream->out_curr->ext, which can lead to use-after-free once the old stream state has been released via sctp_stream_free(). This results in crashes such as (reported by Yuqi): BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in sctp_sched_fcfs_dequeue+0x13a/0x140 Read of size 8 at addr ff1100004d4d3208 by task mini_poc/9312 CPU: 1 UID: 1001 PID: 9312 Comm: mini_poc Not tainted 7.1.0-rc1-00305-gbd3a4795d574 #5 PREEMPT(full) sctp_sched_fcfs_dequeue+0x13a/0x140 sctp_outq_flush+0x1603/0x33e0 sctp_do_sm+0x31c9/0x5d30 sctp_assoc_bh_rcv+0x392/0x6f0 sctp_inq_push+0x1db/0x270 sctp_rcv+0x138d/0x3c10 Fix this by fully purging the association outqueue when handling the Stale Cookie case. This ensures all pending transmit and retransmit state is dropped, and any scheduler cached pointers are invalidated, making it safe to rebuild stream state during COOKIE_WAIT restart. Updating only stream->out_curr would be insufficient, since queued and retransmittable data would still reference the old stream state and trigger later use-after-free in dequeue paths.
Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS

