CVE-2026-98229

A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's XFRM (IPsec) subsystem. During incoming packet processing, certain network receive paths can reset security context information before the system finishes handling the IPsec state. If that state is concurrently deleted, the kernel can dereference freed memory, leading to a use-after-free vulnerability. An attacker could exploit this issue during network traffic handling to cause a kernel crash and a Denial of Service (DoS).

A race in XFRM input processing can cause a use after free when secpath_reset drops the last reference to an xfrm_state while xfrm_input still uses that state. VTI and XFRM interface receive callbacks can reset the secpath before later reads of x type proto or x props family, and the XFRM_MAX_DEPTH drop path can expose a similar lifetime problem. A remote peer may reach the vulnerable receive path by sending traffic to a configured XFRM or IPsec tunnel while the related state is concurrently deleted or reset. For the CVSS the PR:L value is used because reliable remote triggering normally requires access as a valid IPsec peer or equivalent access to the configured tunnel path. AC:H is used because exploitation depends on a narrow race with state deletion and on a specific VTI or XFRM interface configuration. Impact is at least denial of service through a kernel crash. Reuse of the freed state memory may permit confidentiality or integrity impact in the worst case, although no reliable arbitrary write primitive is established by the available code. The issue is generally limited to systems that expose configured XFRM or IPsec tunnel processing and is not reachable on systems where these paths are not configured.

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.