CVE-2026-98432

A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's IPv4 networking subsystem. A race condition occurs during concurrent processing of retransmitted Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) connection requests or socket migrations, allowing socket options to be freed while still in use. A remote attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending specially timed network requests, triggering a use-after-free condition. This could results in system crash leading to a Denial of Service (DoS), memory corruption, or remote code execution.

This vulnerability is rated as Critical severity for Red Hat Enterprise Linux because it allows an unauthenticated remote attacker to cause kernel memory corruption or an immediate system crash over standard IPv4 TCP network traffic without requiring local privileges or user interaction. In default enterprise configurations across Red Hat environments, TCP services accept incoming connections without specialized tuning, making the concurrent connection handling paths inherently exposed to remote networks. Although reliably executing arbitrary code through this timing-sensitive use-after-free scenario requires precise heap control, the lack of network prerequisites and the potential for severe system instability elevate the impact above Important.

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.

See the security bulletin for a detailed mitigation procedure.