VulnerabilityPublished 27 May 2026Updated 19 Oct 2026

CVE-2026-45970: Linux kernel · Use After Free

Affects Linux kernelSource CVE Database V5

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 7.8 High · fixed in fef13c403be3fb685cb06419e6b3623106aab5ba : patch Linux kernel soon.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 14:18 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

7.8High

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS

0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 2% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

Exploitation: No evidence of active exploitation and no public proof of concept
Automatable: Attackers cannot reliably automate steps 1–4 of the kill chain
Technical impact: Total control over the software or total information disclosure

CISA SSVC assessment, 2026-10-16.

Patch

Available – fixed in fef13c403be3fb685cb06419e6b3623106aab5ba, fd54ddc929be1d6c3b3b7b35d6d4642a5d9e803c, f94a0de7b9f32745a14a1621c63087a092823587 +5

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Attack Vector: Local
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: High
Integrity: High
Availability: High

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Local: The vulnerable component is not bound to the network stack and the attacker’s path is via read/write/execute capabilities. Either: the attacker exploits the vulnerability by accessing the target system locally (e.g., keyboard, console), or remotely (e.g., SSH); or the attacker relies on User Interaction by another person to perform actions required to exploit the vulnerability (e.g., tricking a legitimate user into opening a malicious document).
Attack Complexity: Low: Specialized access conditions or extenuating circumstances do not exist. An attacker can expect repeatable success against the vulnerable component.
Privileges Required: Low: The attacker is authorized with (i.e., requires) privileges that provide basic user capabilities that could normally affect only settings and files owned by a user. Alternatively, an attacker with Low privileges may have the ability to cause an impact only to non-sensitive resources.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
Confidentiality: High: There is total loss of confidentiality, resulting in all resources within the impacted component being divulged to the attacker. Alternatively, access to only some restricted information is obtained, but the disclosed information presents a direct, serious impact.
Integrity: High: There is a total loss of integrity, or a complete loss of protection. For example, the attacker is able to modify any/all files protected by the impacted component. Alternatively, only some files can be modified, but malicious modification would present a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component.
Availability: High: There is total loss of availability, resulting in the attacker being able to fully deny access to resources in the impacted component; this loss is either sustained (while the attacker continues to deliver the attack) or persistent (the condition persists even after the attack has completed). Alternatively, the attacker has the ability to deny some availability, but the loss of availability presents a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component (e.g., the attacker cannot disrupt existing connections, but can prevent new connections; the attacker can repeatedly exploit a vulnerability that, in each instance of a successful attack, leaks a only small amount of memory, but after repeated exploitation causes a service to become completely unavailable).

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 27 May 2026
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 26 Oct 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Upgrade to a fixed release listed under Affected software.

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
LinuxLinux	Affected ≥ 3aba891dde3842d89ad022237b99c1ed308040b0, < fef13c403be3fb685cb06419e6b3623106aab5ba	Fixed in fef13c403be3fb685cb06419e6b3623106aab5ba
LinuxLinux	Affected ≥ 3aba891dde3842d89ad022237b99c1ed308040b0, < fd54ddc929be1d6c3b3b7b35d6d4642a5d9e803c	Fixed in fd54ddc929be1d6c3b3b7b35d6d4642a5d9e803c
LinuxLinux	Affected ≥ 3aba891dde3842d89ad022237b99c1ed308040b0, < f94a0de7b9f32745a14a1621c63087a092823587	Fixed in f94a0de7b9f32745a14a1621c63087a092823587
LinuxLinux	Affected ≥ 3aba891dde3842d89ad022237b99c1ed308040b0, < e6834a4c474697df23ab9948fd3577b26bf48656	Fixed in e6834a4c474697df23ab9948fd3577b26bf48656
LinuxLinux	Affected ≥ 3aba891dde3842d89ad022237b99c1ed308040b0, < de7c097800f07f3c108185c7a38b53a530ba30ff	Fixed in de7c097800f07f3c108185c7a38b53a530ba30ff
LinuxLinux	Affected ≥ 3aba891dde3842d89ad022237b99c1ed308040b0, < db5435b5342e3aaa4521d0f3ccfe94316b253ca1	Fixed in db5435b5342e3aaa4521d0f3ccfe94316b253ca1

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: bonding: alb: fix UAF in rlb_arp_recv during bond up/down The ALB RX path may access rx_hashtbl concurrently with bond teardown. During rapid bond up/down cycles, rlb_deinitialize() frees rx_hashtbl while RX handlers are still running, leading to a null pointer dereference detected by KASAN. However, the root cause is that rlb_arp_recv() can still be accessed after setting recv_probe to NULL, which is actually a use-after-free (UAF) issue. That is the reason for using the referenced commit in the Fixes tag. [ 214.174138] Oops: general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0xdffffc000000001d: 0000 [#1] SMP KASAN PTI [ 214.186478] KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x00000000000000e8-0x00000000000000ef] [ 214.194933] CPU: 30 UID: 0 PID: 2375 Comm: ping Kdump: loaded Not tainted 6.19.0-rc8+ #2 PREEMPT(voluntary) [ 214.205907] Hardware name: Dell Inc. PowerEdge R730/0WCJNT, BIOS 2.14.0 01/14/2022 [ 214.214357] RIP: 0010:rlb_arp_recv+0x505/0xab0 [bonding] [ 214.220320] Code: 0f 85 2b 05 00 00 48 b8 00 00 00 00 00 fc ff df 40 0f b6 ed 48 c1 e5 06 49 03 ad 78 01 00 00 48 8d 7d 28 48 89 fa 48 c1 ea 03 <0f> b6 04 02 84 c0 74 06 0f 8e 12 05 00 00 80 7d 28 00 0f 84 8c 00 [ 214.241280] RSP: 0018:ffffc900073d8870 EFLAGS: 00010206 [ 214.247116] RAX: dffffc0000000000 RBX: ffff888168556822 RCX: ffff88816855681e [ 214.255082] RDX: 000000000000001d RSI: dffffc0000000000 RDI: 00000000000000e8 [ 214.263048] RBP: 00000000000000c0 R08: 0000000000000002 R09: ffffed11192021c8 [ 214.271013] R10: ffff8888c9010e43 R11: 0000000000000001 R12: 1ffff92000e7b119 [ 214.278978] R13: ffff8888c9010e00 R14: ffff888168556822 R15: ffff888168556810 [ 214.286943] FS: 00007f85d2d9cb80(0000) GS:ffff88886ccb3000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 [ 214.295966] CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 [ 214.302380] CR2: 00007f0d047b5e34 CR3: 00000008a1c2e002 CR4: 00000000001726f0 [ 214.310347] Call Trace: [ 214.313070] <IRQ> [ 214.315318] ? __pfx_rlb_arp_recv+0x10/0x10 [bonding] [ 214.320975] bond_handle_frame+0x166/0xb60 [bonding] [ 214.326537] ? __pfx_bond_handle_frame+0x10/0x10 [bonding] [ 214.332680] __netif_receive_skb_core.constprop.0+0x576/0x2710 [ 214.339199] ? __pfx_arp_process+0x10/0x10 [ 214.343775] ? sched_balance_find_src_group+0x98/0x630 [ 214.349513] ? __pfx___netif_receive_skb_core.constprop.0+0x10/0x10 [ 214.356513] ? arp_rcv+0x307/0x690 [ 214.360311] ? __pfx_arp_rcv+0x10/0x10 [ 214.364499] ? __lock_acquire+0x58c/0xbd0 [ 214.368975] __netif_receive_skb_one_core+0xae/0x1b0 [ 214.374518] ? __pfx___netif_receive_skb_one_core+0x10/0x10 [ 214.380743] ? lock_acquire+0x10b/0x140 [ 214.385026] process_backlog+0x3f1/0x13a0 [ 214.389502] ? process_backlog+0x3aa/0x13a0 [ 214.394174] __napi_poll.constprop.0+0x9f/0x370 [ 214.399233] net_rx_action+0x8c1/0xe60 [ 214.403423] ? __pfx_net_rx_action+0x10/0x10 [ 214.408193] ? lock_acquire.part.0+0xbd/0x260 [ 214.413058] ? sched_clock_cpu+0x6c/0x540 [ 214.417540] ? mark_held_locks+0x40/0x70 [ 214.421920] handle_softirqs+0x1fd/0x860 [ 214.426302] ? __pfx_handle_softirqs+0x10/0x10 [ 214.431264] ? __neigh_event_send+0x2d6/0xf50 [ 214.436131] do_softirq+0xb1/0xf0 [ 214.439830] </IRQ> The issue is reproducible by repeatedly running ip link set bond0 up/down while receiving ARP messages, where rlb_arp_recv() can race with rlb_deinitialize() and dereference a freed rx_hashtbl entry. Fix this by setting recv_probe to NULL and then calling synchronize_net() to wait for any concurrent RX processing to finish. This ensures that no RX handler can access rx_hashtbl after it is freed in bond_alb_deinitialize().

CWE-416Use After Free (opens in a new tab)
Variant weaknessLikelihood of exploit: HighCWE Top 25 (2025): #7
The product reuses or references memory after it has been freed. At some point afterward, the memory may be allocated again and saved in another pointer, while the original pointer references a location somewhere within the new allocation. Any operations using the original pointer are no longer valid because the memory "belongs" to the code that operates on the new pointer.
Architecture and Design · Language Selection
Choose a language that provides automatic memory management.
Implementation · Attack Surface Reduction
When freeing pointers, be sure to set them to NULL once they are freed. However, the utilization of multiple or complex data structures may lower the usefulness of this strategy.
OWASP Cheat Sheets
XML Security (opens in a new tab)
Mass Assignment (opens in a new tab)
OWASP ASVS 4.0.3
V13.3.1 (opens in a new tab)
V5.1.4 (opens in a new tab)
V5.1.3 (opens in a new tab)
From MITRE CWE, MITRE CAPEC and OWASP (Top 10, OpenCRE).

References

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Exploitation evidence

What to do

Affected software

Description

WeaknessesCWE-416

Technical details

References

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