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CRITICAL Introduced in 3.8

ipv6 ExtensionHeader OOB

CVE-2026-98532

CVSS 9.8 / 10.0 KernelScan AI

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

01

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ipv6: do not let ipv6_find_hdr() return an offset past the packet end ipv6_find_hdr() walks the extension header chain, skipping each header by the length that header itself declares. ipv6_optlen() returns up to 2048, and the skip is never checked against skb->len, so the offset stored in *offset can point past the end of the packet. openvswitch installs that offset as the transport header, and update_ipv6_checksum() then reads and writes the transport checksum field out of bounds: BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in inet_proto_csum_replace16+0x445/0x470 Read of size 2 at addr ffff88810b754b06 by task ovs_ipv6_oob/629 CPU: 4 UID: 1000 PID: 629 Comm: ovs_ipv6_oob Tainted: G N 7.3.0-rc3+ #348 Call Trace: inet_proto_csum_replace16+0x445/0x470 set_ipv6_addr+0x3dd/0x460 do_execute_actions+0x6a3d/0x7c40 ovs_execute_actions+0xfd/0x480 ovs_packet_cmd_execute+0xc38/0xf20 genl_rcv_msg+0x59e/0x870 netlink_rcv_skb+0x18b/0x450 genl_rcv+0x2d/0x40 netlink_unicast+0x6bc/0xa20 The buggy address belongs to the object at ffff88810b754980 which belongs to the cache skbuff_small_head of size 704 The buggy address is located 390 bytes inside of freed 704-byte region [ffff88810b754980, ffff88810b754c40) Other callers use that offset too, so bound it here rather than in one caller. Reject a header whose declared length does not fit in the packet. ipv6_find_hdr() already fails with -EBADMSG on a malformed chain, so this adds no new failure mode.

02

Engine v0.9.0

Risk summary

A remote attacker can send a crafted IPv6 packet with extension headers that declare lengths exceeding the actual packet size. This causes the IPv6 stack to compute an offset past the end of the packet buffer, leading to out-of-bounds memory reads and writes when the offset is used for checksum updates. The vulnerability is reachable on any system with IPv6 enabled that processes incoming IPv6 traffic, requiring no authentication or local access.

Affectednet/ipv6/exthdrs_core.c (IPv6 extension header parsing)

Vulnerability analysis

The IPv6 stack's extension header parser calculates where the next header starts by trusting the length value inside each header. A malformed packet can declare a header length larger than the remaining packet data, causing the parser to return an offset that points past the end of the packet buffer. When other parts of the networking stack — such as Open vSwitch or the netfilter firewall — use this offset to locate the transport header, they read and write memory outside the packet's allocated region. The fix adds a check that rejects any header whose declared length exceeds the remaining packet data. Any remote attacker who can send a crafted IPv6 packet to a system with IPv6 enabled can trigger this, whether the packet is addressed to the host or merely passing through.

03

BranchIntroducedFixed inPatch commit
5.103.85.10.271ca96b38730e3
5.153.85.15.222531255de8971
6.13.86.1.189543354c6efb2
6.123.86.12.1121c70275ca87e
6.183.86.18.551d4282856588
6.63.86.6.158dc92cb972e86
7.23.87.2.94254d5878c32
mainline3.87.3ee319bd3a0e9
cip/5.103.85.10.271-cip78ca96b38730e3
cip/6.13.86.1.189-cip61543354c6efb2
cip/6.1-rt3.86.1.189-cip61-rt32543354c6efb2
cip/6.123.86.12.112-cip331c70275ca87e

04

State of the newest release of each Civil Infrastructure Platform SLTS tree, from CIP's own fix records.

CIP treeState
cip/6.12Fixed in 6.12.112-cip33
cip/6.1Fixed in 6.1.189-cip61
cip/6.1-rtFixed in 6.1.189-cip61-rt32
cip/5.10Fixed in 5.10.271-cip78
cip/5.10-rtAffected — no CIP fix yet (latest 5.10.268-cip77-rt34)
cip/4.19Affected — no CIP fix yet (latest 4.19.325-cip136)
cip/4.19-rtAffected — no CIP fix yet (latest 4.19.325-cip136-rt50)
cip/4.4Affected — no CIP fix yet (latest 4.4.302-cip115)
cip/4.4-rtAffected — no CIP fix yet (latest 4.4.302-cip115-rt63)