CVE-2026-72444
Received
Received - Intake
Memory Corruption in Linux Kernel Flow Dissector
Vulnerability report for CVE-2026-72444, including description, CVSS score, EPSS score, affected products, exploitability, helpful resources, and attack-flow context.
Publication date: 2026-08-15
Last updated on: 2026-08-15
Assigner: kernel.org
Description
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
flow_dissector: check device type before reading ETH_ADDRS
__skb_flow_dissect() unconditionally reads 12 bytes from eth_hdr(skb)
when FLOW_DISSECTOR_KEY_ETH_ADDRS is requested. This assumes the skb
has a valid Ethernet header at mac_header, which is not always the case.
The problem can be triggered by:
1. Creating a TUN device in L3 mode (IFF_TUN, hard_header_len=0)
2. Attaching a multiq qdisc with a flower filter matching on eth_src
3. Sending a packet through AF_PACKET
Since TUN in L3 mode has no link-layer header, mac_header points to
the L3 data area. The flow dissector reads 12 bytes of uninitialized
skb memory, which then propagates through fl_set_masked_key() and is
used as a rhashtable lookup key in __fl_lookup(), as reported by KMSAN.
Rejecting the filter in the control path (at tc filter add time) is
not feasible because TC filter blocks can be shared between arbitrary
devices -- a filter installed on an Ethernet device may later classify
packets on a headerless device through a shared block. The device
association is not fixed at filter creation time.
Fix this by gating the memcpy on dev->type == ARPHRD_ETHER, which
ensures only true Ethernet-framed packets have their addresses read.
This is more precise than the previous hard_header_len >= 12 check,
which would incorrectly pass for non-Ethernet link types like IPoIB
(ARPHRD_INFINIBAND, hard_header_len=24) and FDDI (hard_header_len=21)
whose L2 headers are not in Ethernet format. Additionally check
skb_mac_header_was_set() to guard against the pathological case where
mac_header is the unset sentinel (~0U), which would cause eth_hdr() to
return a wild pointer.
For the act_mirred redirect case (Ethernet packet redirected to a
non-Ethernet device sharing a TC block), zeroing the key is the correct
behavior: the packet is now being classified on the target device, where
Ethernet address matching is not semantically meaningful.
Note: on non-Ethernet devices, the zeroed key will match a filter
configured with all-zero MAC addresses. This is an improvement over the
previous behavior where uninitialized memory could randomly match any
filter.
CVSS Scores
EPSS Scores
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Meta Information
Affected Vendors & Products
| Vendor | Product | Version / Range |
|---|---|---|
| linux | linux_kernel | * |
Helpful Resources
Exploitability
CWE
KEV
| CWE ID | Description |
|---|---|
| CWE-UNKNOWN |
