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CVE-2026-74621

net/sched: act_ct: fix sk_buff leak when the header checks reject a packet PUBLISHED

Description (CNA)

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net/sched: act_ct: fix sk_buff leak when the header checks reject a packet tcf_ct_handle_fragments() runs its header sanity checks before handing anything to the defragmentation engine: if (family == NFPROTO_IPV4) err = tcf_ct_ipv4_is_fragment(skb, &frag); else err = tcf_ct_ipv6_is_fragment(skb, &frag); if (err || !frag) return err; tcf_ct_ipv4_is_fragment() returns -EINVAL or -ENOMEM; tcf_ct_ipv6_is_fragment() adds -EPROTO when ipv6_find_hdr() fails. None of them frees or queues the skb, so on that path the caller still owns it. tcf_ct_act() however funnels every non-zero return into the ownership-transfer exit: err = tcf_ct_handle_fragments(net, skb, family, p->zone, &defrag); if (err) goto out_frag; ... out_frag: if (err != -EINPROGRESS) tcf_action_inc_drop_qstats(&c->common); return TC_ACT_CONSUMED; TC_ACT_CONSUMED means the action took ownership of the skb, so no caller frees it - sch_handle_ingress(), sch_handle_egress() and tcf_qevent_handle() all deliberately skip the free for that verdict. The skb is therefore orphaned: one sk_buff plus its data buffer is leaked per malformed packet, unbounded. Note the drop counter is already incremented for these errors, so the statistics claim a drop that never happens. Three different ownership states reach out_frag: today - the skb may be queued by the defrag engine (-EINPROGRESS), already freed by nf_ct_handle_fragments(), or still owned by us. Tell the caller which of those it is, and free the packet ourselves in the last case, which restores the TC_ACT_SHOT behaviour that predated the Fixes: commit. Reproduced on v7.2-rc6 with a 54-byte frame carrying a 40-byte IPv6 header with nexthdr = 0 (hop-by-hop) and nothing after it, on a clsact ingress chain with "action ct". kmemleak reports one leaked 232-byte skbuff_head_cache object plus its 704-byte data buffer per packet; with this patch it reports none.

Affected (CNA)

Vendor / productVersions
Linux / Linuxaffected 172ba7d46c202e679f3ccb10264c67416aaeb1c4 before b5dbecc2016e1692fd1c2532af9c41ba729cb747; affected 0b5b831122fc3789fff75be433ba3e4dd7b779d4 before 23e97d594ddd0153020c506d5041048fbde1beb4; affected 73f7da5fd124f2cda9161e2e46114915e6e82e97 before 737873a59905a54ca0d2d127ef882f3f88bf4379; affected 3f14b377d01d8357eba032b4cabc8c1149b458b6 before 47d99828591d0fe8be4b9c8992ff3b8e47968db9; affected 3f14b377d01d8357eba032b4cabc8c1149b458b6 before b47bb899e04b5407c5a63fe88d4b6676586a6e84; affected 3f14b377d01d8357eba032b4cabc8c1149b458b6 before 439d3e404f9d5e515911cc8132cde198b337c19e; affected 3f14b377d01d8357eba032b4cabc8c1149b458b6 before 8a7ed561671aa6a911a2de99e59ef670a4d0b1df; affected f5346df0591d10bc948761ca854b1fae6d2ef441; affected 5.15.148 before 5.15.217; affected 6.1.75 before 6.1.184; affected 6.6.14 before 6.6.152; affected 6.7.2 before 6.8
Linux / Linuxaffected 6.8; unaffected 0 before 6.8; unaffected 5.15.217 through 5.15.*; unaffected 6.1.184 through 6.1.*; unaffected 6.6.152 through 6.6.*; unaffected 6.12.104 through 6.12.*; unaffected 6.18.45 through 6.18.*; unaffected 7.1.9 through 7.1.*; unaffected 7.2 through *

CWE

No CWE identifiers supplied.

References

ADP enrichment

CISA-ADP

No English description supplied.

No references supplied.