CVE-2026-23239

A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's espintcp component. A local attacker with low privileges could exploit a race condition in the espintcp_close() function. This could allow the espintcp_tx_work() worker to access freed memory, potentially leading to a system crash and resulting in a Denial of Service (DoS).

This vulnerability is rated as Moderate impact for Red Hat Enterprise Linux because exploitation requires local access and precise timing to trigger a race condition, primarily resulting in a denial of service via a kernel crash. The affected IPsec Encapsulating Security Payload over TCP functionality is not utilized in default network configurations and is typically restricted to specialized IPsec tunneling setups. Consequently, environments that do not establish ESP-in-TCP connections are not exposed to this issue during normal operations.

The CVSS score(s) listed for this vulnerability do not reflect the associated product's status, and are included for informational purposes to better understand the severity of this vulnerability.