VulnerabilityPublished 25 Jun 2026Updated 2 Jul 2026

CVE-2026-53208: Linux kernel · Bluetooth: L2CAP: reject BR/EDR signaling packets over MTUsig

Source GCVE Database

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 5.5 Medium.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 14:05 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

5.5Medium

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.

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

Attack Vector: Local
Attack Complexity: Low
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: None
Integrity: None
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: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the impacted component.
Integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within 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 25 Jun 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.

ghsa-hhxp-r7j7-v7jv

What to do

AI-suggested

A fix for this vulnerability is available in the Linux kernel that enforces the signaling MTU limit and rejects oversized BR/EDR signaling packets with an appropriate L2CAP command reject response before processing any commands. Users and administrators should apply the official Linux kernel updates that include this fix. Since this is a kernel-level Bluetooth vulnerability, no additional mitigations are indicated beyond applying the patch. Patch status is not explicitly confirmed in the provided data; check the vendor advisory or Linux kernel release notes for the exact fixed versions and update accordingly.

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: Bluetooth: L2CAP: reject BR/EDR signaling packets over MTUsig net/bluetooth/l2cap_core.c:l2cap_sig_channel() accepts BR/EDR signaling packets up to the channel MTU and dispatches each command without enforcing the signaling MTU (MTUsig). A Bluetooth BR/EDR peer within radio range can send a fixed-channel CID 0x0001 packet that is larger than MTUsig and contains many L2CAP_ECHO_REQ commands before pairing. In a real-radio stock-kernel run, one 681-byte signaling packet containing 168 zero-length ECHO_REQ commands made the target transmit 168 ECHO_RSP frames over about 220 ms. Impact: a Bluetooth BR/EDR peer within radio range, before pairing, can force 168 ECHO_RSP frames from one 681-byte fixed-channel signaling packet containing packed ECHO_REQ commands. Define Linux's BR/EDR signaling MTU as the spec minimum of 48 bytes and reject any larger signaling packet with one L2CAP_COMMAND_REJECT_RSP carrying L2CAP_REJ_MTU_EXCEEDED before any command is dispatched. The Bluetooth Core spec wording for MTUExceeded says the reject identifier shall match the first request command in the packet, and that packets containing only responses shall be silently discarded. Linux intentionally deviates from that prescription: silently discarding desynchronizes the peer because the remote stack never learns its responses were dropped, and locating the first request command requires walking command headers past MTUsig, i.e. processing bytes from a packet we have already decided is too large to process. We therefore always emit one reject and use the identifier from the first command header, a single fixed-offset byte read. The unrestricted BR/EDR signaling parser and ECHO_REQ response path both trace to the initial git import; no later introducing commit is available for a Fixes tag.

Impact

A Bluetooth BR/EDR peer within radio range can send a single oversized signaling packet containing many L2CAP_ECHO_REQ commands before pairing, causing the target device to respond with a large number of ECHO_RSP frames. This can lead to a denial of service condition by consuming device resources and radio airtime. There is no impact on confidentiality or integrity. The vulnerability requires local radio range access and low privileges (PR:L).

Summary

The Linux kernel's Bluetooth L2CAP signaling parser in net/bluetooth/l2cap_core.c did not enforce the signaling MTU (MTUsig) limit, accepting BR/EDR signaling packets up to the channel MTU. This allowed a Bluetooth BR/EDR peer to send a fixed-channel CID 0x0001 packet larger than MTUsig containing many L2CAP_ECHO_REQ commands before pairing. In practice, one 681-byte packet with 168 zero-length ECHO_REQ commands caused the target to transmit 168 ECHO_RSP frames over about 220 ms, leading to a potential denial of service. The fix defines the signaling MTU as the spec minimum of 48 bytes and rejects any larger signaling packet with an L2CAP_COMMAND_REJECT_RSP carrying L2CAP_REJ_MTU_EXCEEDED before dispatching any command. The Linux implementation intentionally deviates from the Bluetooth Core spec by always emitting one reject response with the identifier from the first command header to avoid peer desynchronization. This vulnerability traces back to the initial git import of the Bluetooth code with no prior fix.

References

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