KernelScan.io

CRITICAL Introduced in 4.15

sctp OutQueue UAF

CVE-2026-52924

CVSS 9.8 / 10.0 NVD

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

KernelScan AI8.6HIGH

01

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.

02

Engine v0.3.0

Risk summary

A remote peer can trigger a use-after-free in the Linux kernel SCTP stack by sending a Stale Cookie ERROR during association setup. This can lead to information disclosure, limited memory corruption, and ultimately a kernel crash causing denial of service. No authentication or special privileges are required since the trigger is a standard SCTP protocol message from a remote peer.

Affectednet/sctp/sm_statefuns.c (SCTP state machine)

Vulnerability analysis

When an SCTP association receives a Stale Cookie ERROR in the COOKIE_ECHOED state, sctp_sf_do_5_2_6_stale() rolls the association back to COOKIE_WAIT. During this rollback, sctp_stream_update() frees the old stream table and installs a new one, but does not clear stream->out_curr. If user data was already queued and bundled with the COOKIE-ECHO chunk, out_curr still points to a freed sctp_stream_out entry from the old stream state. When the SCTP scheduler dequeue paths (FCFS, RR, PRIO) subsequently access stream->out_curr->ext, they dereference freed memory. The stale read can expose heap contents (information disclosure) and the pointer is later used in list operations that may write to freed memory (limited corruption). Ultimately, this results in a slab-use-after-free crash. The fix replaces the SCTP_CMD_T1_RETRAN command with SCTP_CMD_PURGE_OUTQUEUE, fully draining pending transmit and retransmit state and invalidating scheduler cached pointers before rebuilding stream state. The vulnerability is remotely triggerable because a malicious or misbehaving SCTP peer can send a crafted Stale Cookie ERROR during the handshake without requiring privileges.

03

BranchIntroducedFixed inPatch commit
6.124.156.12.941d4652f67790
6.64.156.6.1432afc9e684dc7
7.04.157.0.1383ade59e5da3
5.104.155.10.25984b7a319105d
6.184.156.18.36a6207349e703
6.14.156.1.1763c0741a441a7
mainline4.157.1e374b22e9b07
5.154.155.15.210f46e1d1a7588