CVE-2026-49422
Received Received - Intake

Linux Kernel RACK Use-After-Free Privilege Escalation

Vulnerability report for CVE-2026-49422, including description, CVSS score, EPSS score, affected products, exploitability, helpful resources, and attack-flow context.

Publication date: 2026-08-19

Last updated on: 2026-08-19

Assigner: FreeBSD

Description

The RACK setsockopt(2) handler drops the connection lock in order to copy option data from userspace, then reacquires the lock. After reacquiring, it verifies that the TCP stack had not been switched away, but did not reload its pointer to the stack's per-connection control block. If userspace switches stacks twice during this window, the check will succeed but the saved pointer will refer to freed memory. The bug may be exploitable by an unprivileged local user to escalate privileges.

CVSS Scores

EPSS Scores

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Meta Information

Published
2026-08-19
Last Modified
2026-08-19
Generated
2026-08-19
AI Q&A
2026-08-19
EPSS Evaluated
N/A
NVD
EUVD

Affected Vendors & Products

Showing 1 associated CPE
Vendor Product Version / Range
freebsd freebsd From 14.3 (inc) to 15.1 (inc)

Helpful Resources

Exploitability

CWE
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KEV
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CWE ID Description
CWE-416 The product reuses or references memory after it has been freed. At some point afterward, the memory may be allocated again and saved in another pointer, while the original pointer references a location somewhere within the new allocation. Any operations using the original pointer are no longer valid because the memory "belongs" to the code that operates on the new pointer.

Attack-Flow Graph

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Executive Summary

CVE-2026-49422 is a use-after-free vulnerability in FreeBSD's TCP RACK stack option handler. It occurs when the handler drops and reacquires a connection lock while copying data from userspace. If userspace switches TCP stacks twice during this window, the check may pass while a saved pointer points to freed memory, potentially allowing privilege escalation by an unprivileged local user.

Detection Guidance

Check if the tcp_rack.ko kernel module is loaded using the command kldstat -m tcp_rack. Systems without this module loaded are unaffected.

Impact Analysis

An unprivileged local user could exploit this to escalate privileges on affected systems. The vulnerability only affects systems with the tcp_rack.ko kernel module loaded. Users without this module are unaffected. Exploitation requires specific timing conditions during stack switching.

Mitigation Strategies

Upgrade your FreeBSD system using pkg upgrade, freebsd-update, or apply source code patches. Then reboot the system to ensure the fix is applied.

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EPSS Chart