CVE-2026-99288Linux vulnerability
CVE-2026-99288 is a vulnerability in Linux, not yet scored.
Why this priority: Not scored yet, and no exploitation signal.
Published · Updated · NVD status: Received
What it is
The record does not classify the weakness yet; the description below says what the reporter found.
How it is reached
The record does not say yet how the flaw is reached; the description below is the best guide until it is scored.
What an attacker gains
Its impact has not been scored yet.
Is it being exploited?
There is no public report of exploitation yet.
What to do
- Upgrade Linux to a fixed version for your release line (6.12.117, 6.18.63, 7.3.4).
Description from NVD
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
inet: reject unhashed sockets during established lookups
TCP established ehash lookups are lockless. The socket caches involved use SLAB_TYPESAFE_BY_RCU, so memory can be reused before an RCU reader that retained its old address has finished.
After a tuple match, __inet_lookup_established() and __inet6_lookup_established() acquire a reference and repeat the tuple check. They do not check whether the new object is hashed. If the address is reused for a socket with the same tuple, the lookup can acquire a reference to the new object and return it while its nulls node is unhashed.
A PoC that drives reuse with a SYN cookie request socket reproduced the crash. The new request socket is unhashed and has a NULL rsk_listener. A lookup that had loaded the address of the old request socket acquired the reference published by tcp_get_cookie_sock() and returned the new object. tcp_v4_rcv() then read sk_state through the NULL listener.
The resulting crash was:
BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000012 #PF: supervisor read access in kernel mode #PF: error_code(0x0000) - not-present page ... Oops: Oops: 0000 [#1] SMP NOPTI CPU: 4 UID: 0 PID: 0 Comm: swapper/4 Not tainted 7.3.0-00591-g0e135910deec #1 PREEMPT(lazy) ... RIP: 0010:tcp_v4_rcv+0x44e/0x1280 ... R10: 0000000000000001 R11: 00000000024ca8c0 R12: 0000000000000000 ... CR2: 0000000000000012 CR3: 0000000103d50004 CR4: 0000000000770ef0 ... Call Trace: <IRQ> ? raw_local_deliver+0xae/0x240 ip_protocol_deliver_rcu+0x2d/0x180 ip_local_deliver_finish+0x84/0x100 ip_sublist_rcv_finish+0x5f/0x70 ip_sublist_rcv+0x12a/0x1d0 ip_list_rcv+0xfd/0x130 __netif_receive_skb_list_core+0x223/0x250 netif_receive_skb_list_internal+0x1d2/0x2c0 ? try_fill_recv+0x39/0x7b0 napi_complete_done+0x74/0x170 virtnet_poll+0x445/0x600 __napi_poll+0x27/0x1e0 net_rx_action+0x2fe/0x3b0 handle_softirqs+0xc2/0x2c0 __irq_exit_rcu+0x74/0xd0 common_interrupt+0x7f/0x90 </IRQ> ... Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal exception in interrupt
After taking a reference, check whether the nulls node is unhashed in both IPv4 and IPv6 established lookups. If it is unhashed or the tuple no longer matches, drop the reference and restart the lookup.
Lookups racing with the TIME_WAIT hashdance, or with a request being replaced by its child, now restart and find the new socket instead of returning the old one.
Request sockets that were never inserted into ehash can have a nonzero refcount, and a stale lookup can hold a transient reference. Therefore, when SYN cookie, Fast Open, and request migration paths fail after setting a nonzero refcount, release the references held by those paths with reqsk_put() instead of freeing the request directly.
What this means for your architecture.
A CVE names a product. Whether it matters depends on where that product sits in your systems: what reaches it, which trust boundary it guards and what it can reach once compromised. Veriom maps your components, their relationships and your trust boundaries from your code, cloud and delivery evidence, so you can see where a component like this sits. The radar itself does not look at your systems.
Components it touches
- Linux. Start from where it runs and what it is connected to.
Trust boundaries in play
Questions to answer about your own systems
- Where does Linux run in your systems, and at which version?
- Which of those instances are reachable by people you do not trust?
- What can it reach once compromised: which data stores, secrets and services?
Sources
- CVE records and CVSS scores from the NVD CVE API. This product uses the NVD API but is not endorsed or certified by the NVD.
- Exploitation status from CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.
- Exploit likelihood from FIRST’s Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS), refreshed daily.
- Explanations are written by Veriom from fixed templates over each record’s data, not by a person reviewing each CVE. Descriptions are quoted from the records as published.