critical · 9.8

sctp: add INIT verification after cookie unpacking

CVE-2026-72398 · published 15 Aug 2026

How serious is it

  • Severity: critical, CVSS score 9.8 out of 10.
  • No exploit prediction (EPSS) score yet.
  • Not on the CISA list of exploited vulnerabilities.
  • No public exploit in Exploit-DB.

Is your app affected by CVE-2026-72398?

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Who is affected

  • Linux Linux: 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 to < 81892d83cc897331510f35b30d17f8b0dc285966, 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 to < 683a012b984fef4bc155e278742fbe01561e102a, 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 to < bca3100f550281c2f2418652338bced3b35af0e6, 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 to < 062bcbf8d1f1051fdeb20b94920031b0e2cb95a2
  • Linux Linux: 2.6.12

How to check

  1. Find out whether you run the affected product and which version, then compare it with the versions above.

How to fix

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  1. Apply the vendor's update or mitigation from the references below. If there is none yet, limit exposure of the affected service until there is.
  2. If a vulnerable version was live, check your logs and rotate the secrets that server could read.

The advisory

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: sctp: add INIT verification after cookie unpacking In SCTP handshake, the INIT chunk is initially processed by the server and embedded into the cookie carried in INIT-ACK. The client then returns this cookie via COOKIE-ECHO, where the server unpacks it and reconstructs the original INIT chunk. When cookie authentication is enabled, the cookie contents are protected against tampering, so reusing the unpacked INIT without re-verification is safe. However, when cookie authentication is disabled, the reconstructed INIT can no longer be trusted. In this case, the INIT must be explicitly validated after unpacking to avoid processing potentially tampered data. Add sctp_verify_init() checks after cookie unpacking in COOKIE-ECHO processing paths (sctp_sf_do_5_1D_ce() and sctp_sf_do_5_2_4_dupcook()) when cookie_auth_enable is disabled. On failure, the new association is freed and the packet is discarded. Also tighten cookie validation in sctp_unpack_cookie() by verifying the embedded chunk type is SCTP_CID_INIT before treating it as an INIT chunk. Finally, update sctp_verify_init() to validate parameter bounds using the actual embedded INIT length instead of chunk->chunk_end, since the INIT stored in COOKIE-ECHO may not span the entire chunk buffer.

Check your whole app

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References

Merged from CVE List. Last updated 25 Oct 2026. All vulnerabilities · RSS · JSON