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CVE-2026-98969EUVD-2026-108763GHSA-G75R-RWJF-JP26

net/sched: em_text: reject unterminated algo before autoload

Published
Last modified
published
Not listed in CISA KEV
Fix
Fixed in 6.6.160, 6.12.113, 6.18.57, 7.2.11
None on Exploit-DB, Metasploit or GitHub

Summary

The Linux kernel's traffic control (net/sched) text-matching classifier extension, em_text, is affected. An unprivileged-in-namespace user with network admin rights can supply a malformed algorithm name that lacks a terminating null byte, causing the kernel to read past the buffer and leak adjacent kernel memory into a module-loading command.

Summarized by anthropic/claude-haiku-5.5. Verify details against the original sources.

Read the original 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

Timeline

  1. CVE published
  2. First seen by cve.now
  3. Record last updated

Affected versions

  • Linux Linux

    Version range not reported

  • Linux Linux

    2.6.13

  • KernelLinux

    From 2.6.13 · fixed in 6.6.160; From 6.7.0 · fixed in 6.12.113; From 6.13.0 · fixed in 6.18.57; From 6.19.0 · fixed in 7.2.11

References 8

git.kernel.org