CVE-2026-98548
CriticalCVSS 9.8Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
Low risk11th percentile - higher than 11% of all known CVEs
Summary
A use-after-free vulnerability exists in the Linux kernel's SCTP implementation. When an association is in COOKIE-ECHOED state and a peer sends a bundled [ERROR(Stale Cookie)][DATA] packet from a non-primary address, processing removes the transport the packet arrived on, but the subsequent DATA chunk re-registers a pointer to that freed transport. Later use of this dangling pointer (e.g., via FWD-TSN or delayed SACK timer) leads to a write to freed memory.
Risk Assessment
The vulnerability can be triggered by any malicious SCTP peer or a local unprivileged user acting as one, with no capabilities required, leading to kernel memory corruption and potential privilege escalation or denial of service (kernel panic).
Recommendation
Update the Linux kernel to a version containing the fix that discards the rest of the packet on a stale-cookie error. If immediate update is not possible, consider restricting access to SCTP services or disabling the sctp module if unused.
Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel
See all- CVE-2026-58942High
In do_fault_around of memory.c, there is a possible use after free due to a logic error in the code. This could lead to local escalation of privilege with no additional execution privileges needed.
- CVE-2026-58847Unknown
In kvm_vfio_pviommu_attach of vfio.c, there is a possible double free due to a logic error in the code. This could lead to local escalation of privilege with no additional execution privileges needed. User interaction is not needed for exploitation.
- CVE-2026-58829High
In fuse_backing_mmap of backing.c, there is a possible memory corruption due to a use after free. This could lead to local escalation of privilege with no additional execution privileges needed.
- CVE-2026-58828High
In multiple functions of base.c, there is a possible use-after-free due to a race condition. This could lead to local escalation of privilege with no additional execution privileges needed.
- CVE-2026-58827High
In multiple functions of dma-buf.c, there is a possible use after free due to a race condition. This could lead to local escalation of privilege with no additional execution privileges needed.
- CVE-2026-58826High
In ksys_unshare of fork.c, there is a possible memory corruption due to a use after free. This could lead to local escalation of privilege with no additional execution privileges needed.
- CVE-2026-58825High
In multiple functions of fork.c, there is a possible use after free due to a logic error in the code. This could lead to local escalation of privilege with no additional execution privileges needed.
- CVE-2026-99242Unknown
In the Linux kernel, a race between fallocate and mmap reads in NTFS was fixed. Fallocate only took invalidate_lock for punch hole, collapse range and insert range operations, and during standard allocation new clusters were mapped before being zeroed, allowing concurrent mmap page faults to read uninitialized disk data.
- CVE-2026-99241Unknown
In the Linux kernel, a missing lock in ntfs_filemap_page_mkwrite() was fixed; it called iomap_page_mkwrite() without holding mapping->invalidate_lock. A concurrent truncate or fallocate could be invalidating pagecache and rewriting the runlist while the write fault mapped blocks and dirtied the folio.
- CVE-2026-99240Unknown
In the Linux kernel, the DAMON subsystem (mm/damon/core) has a division-by-zero bug when a DAMOS quota goal has a target_value of zero. The fix moves handling of this corner case to the core layer by adding validation in damos_commit_quota_goal(), which now returns an error for zero target values.
Original NVD description (English source)
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: sctp: discard the rest of the packet on a stale-cookie error When an association is in COOKIE-ECHOED state and the peer sends a bundled [ERROR(Stale Cookie)][DATA] packet from one of its non-primary addresses, processing the ERROR chunk takes the non-fatal stale-cookie retry path sctp_sf_do_5_2_6_stale(), which queues SCTP_CMD_DEL_NON_PRIMARY while keeping the association alive. sctp_cmd_del_non_primary() removes every non-primary transport - including the very transport this packet arrived on, which is still referenced by the receive lookup and shared by all chunks of the packet via chunk->transport. sctp_assoc_rm_peer() does redirect asoc->peer.last_data_from away from the removed transport, but right afterwards the bundled DATA chunk makes sctp_assoc_bh_rcv() re-register asoc->peer.last_data_from = chunk->transport unconditionally, undoing the redirection with the just-removed transport. Once the packet is done, the receive reference is dropped and the transport is RCU-freed, while the surviving association keeps the dangling last_data_from. A later FWD-TSN (or the delayed SACK timer) makes sctp_gen_sack() dereference it (->param_flags and friends), and sctp_make_sack()/sctp_outq_select_transport() may write to the freed object and link it into the live transport list. This is a use-after-free triggerable by any malicious SCTP peer (or a local unprivileged user acting as one) with no capabilities required: BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in sctp_do_sm+0x498a/0x5660 Read of size 4 at addr ffff88800e1e356c by task poc/115 Call Trace: sctp_do_sm <- sctp_assoc_bh_rcv <- sctp_inq_push <- sctp_rcv <- ip_protocol_deliver_rcu <- ip_rcv Allocated: sctp_transport_new <- sctp_assoc_add_peer <- sctp_process_init (INIT-ACK processing) Freed: kfree <- sctp_transport_destroy_rcu <- rcu_core (call_rcu queued by sctp_transport_put at end of sctp_rcv) The buggy address is located 364 bytes inside of freed 1024-byte region [ffff88800e1e3400, ffff88800e1e3800), cache kmalloc-1k Note that commit 03a9d10ecf71 ("sctp: drop a chunk if its transport was removed") only covers the window between the receive lookup and the chunk processing (e.g. an ASCONF DEL-IP racing the socket backlog); here the transport is removed *while* the packet is being processed, by an earlier chunk of the same packet, so the drop in sctp_inq_push() does not reach this path. Verified with the bundled [ERROR(Stale Cookie)][DATA] + FWD-TSN reproducer: the KASAN report above still fires with that commit applied, and is gone with this patch on top. Fix it by discarding the rest of the packet on this path, as suggested by Xin. After the stale-cookie ERROR has sent the association back to COOKIE-WAIT and removed the non-primary transports, the remaining chunks of the packet can only run against the restarted handshake while referencing the removed arrival transport through chunk->transport: besides the last_data_from registration above, sctp_cmd_setup_t2() and the sctp_make_*() reply builders would also copy that pointer into association-lifetime state that sctp_assoc_rm_peer() has already sanitized. Let the peer retransmit them, in line with what sctp_inq_push() does for chunks whose transport was removed before processing.
Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS