In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net/sched: Only allow act_ct...

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

net/sched: Only allow act_ct to bind to clsact/ingress qdiscs and shared blocks

As Paolo said earlier [1]:

"Since the blamed commit below, classify can return TC_ACT_CONSUMED while
the current skb being held by the defragmentation engine. As reported by
GangMin Kim, if such packet is that may cause a UaF when the defrag engine
later on tries to tuch again such packet."

act_ct was never meant to be used in the egress path, however some users
are attaching it to egress today [2]. Attempting to reach a middle
ground, we noticed that, while most qdiscs are not handling
TC_ACT_CONSUMED, clsact/ingress qdiscs are. With that in mind, we
address the issue by only allowing act_ct to bind to clsact/ingress
qdiscs and shared blocks. That way it's still possible to attach act_ct to
egress (albeit only with clsact).

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/674b8cbfc385c6f37fb29a1de08d8fe5c2b0fbee.1771321118.git.pabeni@redhat.com/
[2] https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/[email protected]/

Basic information

Type
unreviewed
Severity
high
Advisory on GitHub
Open advisory ↗
Repository advisory
Source code
Not specified
Published (advisory)
2026-03-18 18:31:18 UTC
Updated
2026-07-14 15:31:40 UTC
NVD published
2026-03-18

EPSS Score

Score Percentile
0.12% 2.58%

CVSS Scores

Base score Version Severity Vector
7.8 3.1
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H Click to expand
Attack vector (AV:L)
They already need access on the box, or another person has to do something wrong; it’s not a remote drive-by.
Attack complexity (AC:L)
Once they can reach the bug, pulling it off is straightforward—no weird race conditions or rare setup.
Privileges required (PR:L)
A normal user session is enough; they don’t have to be admin.
User interaction (UI:N)
Nobody has to click “OK” or open a trap file; it can work without a victim helping.
Scope (S:U)
Damage stays in the same “trust bubble” as the broken component—no big spill into unrelated systems.
Confidentiality (C:H)
Serious risk that confidential data gets exposed in a big way.
Integrity (I:H)
They could widely tamper with or forge data—trust in the data is badly hurt.
Availability (A:H)
Could take the service down hard or make it unusable for people who depend on it.

Identifiers

CWEs

CWE id Name
CWE-416 Use After Free

References

cvelogic Threat Intelligence