CVE-2026-80904

A flaw was found in the Linux kernel. The tls_sw_splice_read() function does not properly handle errors that occur during asynchronous decryption. This oversight allows the system to continue delivering records on a connection that has failed authentication, even though other functions would correctly refuse to process such data. A remote attacker could potentially exploit this to bypass security checks and cause a denial of service or process unauthenticated data.

This vulnerability is evaluated with a Moderate severity impact because exploitation requires the use of in-kernel TLS with splice-based reading, restricting the impact primarily to handling unauthenticated network stream data or denial of service without permitting host privilege escalation. In standard Red Hat Enterprise Linux environments, kernel TLS is not enabled by default and requires workloads to explicitly configure kernel-level cryptographic socket acceleration. Consequently, general enterprise installations relying on conventional user-space TLS libraries remain unexposed to this issue.

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.