CVE-2026-98969
Received
Received - Intake
Kernel Memory Disclosure in Linux Kernel Net Sched Text Ematch
Vulnerability report for CVE-2026-98969, including description, CVSS score, EPSS score, affected products, exploitability, helpful resources, and attack-flow context.
Publication date: 2026-10-23
Last updated on: 2026-10-23
Assigner: kernel.org
Description
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
net/sched: em_text: reject unterminated algo before autoload
This is a follow-up to commit 9c572a83037a ("net/sched: fix potential
stack infoleak in em_text_dump()"), which zero-initialised the dump-side
struct. Sashiko pointed at a pre-existing bug that exposed the change-side
input-validation gap open.
em_text_change() casts the raw netlink attribute payload to struct
tcf_em_text and passes conf->algo, a 16-byte array with no enforced NUL
terminator, to textsearch_prepare(). On the TS_AUTOLOAD retry
textsearch_prepare() calls request_module("ts_%s", algo); vsnprintf()
walks %s until it finds a NUL, so an algo[] with no NUL reads past the
array into the adjacent struct fields and payload and feeds those bytes
to the usermode helper command line. This is an out-of-bounds read and
a kernel memory disclosure.
Reject the attribute when no NUL exists within TC_EM_TEXT_ALGOSIZ bytes,
matching the check xt_string has had since 3ab720881b6e.
Conditions to recreate the bug:
- CAP_NET_ADMIN on the target netns (namespace-local via unshare -Urn
is enough)
- install clsact on an interface, then add a basic filter with one text
ematch whose algo[] is 16 bytes with no NUL (e.g. "A"*16) and
pattern_len at least 1
- the add fails with -ENOENT and the kernel invokes modprobe with a
module name made of "ts_" plus the 16 bytes and the adjacent payload
CVSS Scores
EPSS Scores
| Probability: | |
| Percentile: |
Meta Information
Affected Vendors & Products
| Vendor | Product | Version / Range |
|---|---|---|
| Linux | Linux | d675c989ed2d4ba23dff615330b04371aea83534 |
| Linux | Linux | d675c989ed2d4ba23dff615330b04371aea83534 |
| Linux | Linux | d675c989ed2d4ba23dff615330b04371aea83534 |
| Linux | Linux | d675c989ed2d4ba23dff615330b04371aea83534 |
| Linux | Linux | d675c989ed2d4ba23dff615330b04371aea83534 |
| Linux | Linux | 2.6.13 |
Helpful Resources
Exploitability
CWE
KEV
| CWE ID | Description |
|---|---|
| CWE-UNKNOWN |
