CVE-2026-98285

A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's network bridge component. When removing Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) configurations, errors returned by hardware offload devices prevent the kernel from completing software cleanup. A local user could exploit this vulnerability to trigger memory leaks or a null pointer dereference, leading to a system crash and a Denial of Service (DoS).

A flaw of low impact was found in the Linux kernel's network bridge VLAN subsystem, affecting the Red Hat Enterprise Linux kernel and kernel-rt packages, the Red Hat In-Vehicle OS kernels, and the Red Hat CoreOS kernel builds shipped with OpenShift Container Platform. When a bridge VLAN is deleted, an error returned by a switchdev hardware offload device could abort the kernel's software VLAN cleanup in __vlan_del. This could leave the bridge VLAN state inconsistent, leak memory when VLANs are flushed, or cause a NULL pointer dereference on the bridge error path when flushing. A local user able to configure bridge VLANs (which requires CAP_NET_ADMIN) on a host whose bridge ports are offloaded to switchdev-capable hardware could use this to crash the kernel, resulting in a local denial of service. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 is not affected because the vulnerable code is not present in that release. Red Hat Product Security rates this issue Low impact because exploitation requires local privileged access and depends on a switchdev deletion error occurring, and the impact is limited to system availability. Because of this low impact, the fix is deferred to a future update of the affected products; the residual risk is a local, privilege-gated denial of service with no impact on confidentiality or integrity.

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 do not meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base, or stability.