CVE-2026-68379

A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's TCP implementation. A reference leak in TIME_WAIT sockets can occur upon a PSP (Policy Security Policy) failure in both IPv4 and IPv6 receive paths. This vulnerability can lead to a memory leak of tcp_tw_bucket structures, potentially resulting in a Denial of Service (DoS) due to resource exhaustion.

This vulnerability is rated as Moderate impact because exploiting the reference counting defect requires sustained, specialized network traffic that repeatedly triggers PSP policy failures against sockets in a teardown state. Standard enterprise distributions, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, 8, and 9, are not affected because the problematic networking changes are not present in their kernels. For affected environments running newer kernel releases, the resulting socket structure accumulation can gradually deplete system memory, leading to denial-of-service conditions over time rather than an immediate host compromise.

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.

Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options don't meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base or stability.