In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: flow_dissector: check device type before reading ETH_ADDRS __skb_fl…
CVE-2026-72444 · published 15 Aug 2026
How serious is it
- Severity: high, CVSS score 7.8 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-2026-72444?
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Who is affected
- Linux Linux: 4.2
How to check
- Find out whether you run the affected product and which version, then compare it with the versions above.
How to fix
Copies a prompt for Claude Code, Cursor or Codex that asks it to check whether you run this product.
- 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.
- 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:
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.
Check your whole app
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References
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/0fe6455b8e1a22414f39c07bc90a1df12b52ec74
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/594c90b197141944f25991b8314de5c26ee27a7e
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/825de39f0c35a112148799b3cbe45af3766c018a
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/9a65860959db594dfc1820c7fdc09285fb7556bf
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/bf6e8af2c8be77489bedeae9f8a9654cb710e500
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/c6d3bcb0f934d4297ac5fa1c8656ae40694fb601
Merged from NVD. Last updated 23 Oct 2026. All vulnerabilities · RSS · JSON