CVE-2026-72502

A flaw was found in the Linux kernel. When processing TCP IPv6 packets with a large Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU), a specific calculated Maximum Segment Size (MSS) value can conflict with an internal flag (GSO_BY_FRAGS). A local attacker could send a specially crafted TCP packet that, when processed, leads to a null pointer dereference. This vulnerability can result in a denial of service.

Red Hat rates the impact of this vulnerability as Moderate because triggering the condition requires local traffic generation under non-standard network configurations with exceptionally large Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) sizes. Under default Red Hat Enterprise Linux installations, standard network interfaces utilize conventional MTU values that keep advertised TCP segment sizes well below the internal threshold. Although an unprivileged local user could induce a kernel null-pointer dereference resulting in a system denial of service, the flaw cannot be leveraged remotely or for arbitrary code execution.

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.