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Linux Kernel CVE-2026-63978

| EUVDEUVD-2026-45751 CRITICAL
2026-07-19 Linux GHSA-2g7m-7wmg-84j3
Critical
Disputed · 9.8 Vendor: Linux
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Severity by source

Sources disagree (Medium–Critical)
Vendor (Linux) PRIMARY
9.8 CRITICAL
AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
vuln.today AI
5.8 MEDIUM

Local, race-dependent teardown (AV:L/AC:H) needs netns control (PR:L); primary impact is resource leak/UAF-driven crash (A:H) with limited, speculative memory disclosure/integrity (C:L/I:L).

3.1 AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:L/A:H
4.0 AV:L/AC:H/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:L/VI:L/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
SUSE
CRITICAL
qualitative
Red Hat
7.0 MEDIUM
qualitative

vuln.today treats the vendor’s rating as authoritative. A higher third-party CVSS (e.g. CISA-ADP) is shown for transparency but does not drive the headline severity.

CVSS VectorVendor: Linux

Attack Vector
Network
Attack Complexity
Low
Privileges Required
None
User Interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
High
Availability
High

Lifecycle Timeline

5
Analysis Generated
Jul 20, 2026 - 16:39 vuln.today
CVSS changed
Jul 20, 2026 - 15:22 NVD
9.8 (CRITICAL)
Patch available
Jul 19, 2026 - 17:19 EUVD
CVE Published
Jul 19, 2026 - 14:56 cve.org
CRITICAL 9.8
CVE Published
Jul 19, 2026 - 14:56 cve.org
UNKNOWN (no severity yet)

DescriptionCVE.org

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

net/handshake: Drain pending requests at net namespace exit

The arguments to list_splice_init() in handshake_net_exit() are reversed. The call moves the local empty "requests" list onto hn->hn_requests, leaving the local list empty, so the subsequent drain loop runs zero iterations. Pending handshake requests that had not yet been accepted are not torn down when the net namespace is destroyed; each one keeps a reference on a socket file and on the handshake_req allocation.

Pass the source and destination in the documented order (list_splice_init(list, head) moves list onto head) so the pending list is transferred to the local scratch list and drained through handshake_complete().

Fixing the splice direction exposes a list-corruption race. After the splice each req->hr_list still has non-empty link pointers, threading the stack-local scratch list rather than hn_requests. A concurrent handshake_req_cancel() -- for example, from sunrpc's TLS timeout on a kernel socket whose netns reference was not taken -- finds the request through the rhashtable, calls remove_pending(), and sees !list_empty(&req->hr_list). __remove_pending_locked() then list_del_init()s an entry off the scratch list while the drain iterates, corrupting it. The same call arriving after the drain loop has run list_del() on an entry hits LIST_POISON instead.

Have remove_pending() check HANDSHAKE_F_NET_DRAINING under hn_lock and report not-found when drain is in progress. The drain has already taken ownership; handshake_complete()'s existing test_and_set on HANDSHAKE_F_REQ_COMPLETED still arbitrates between drain and cancel for who calls the consumer's hp_done. Use list_del_init() rather than list_del() in the drain so req->hr_list does not carry LIST_POISON after drain releases the entry.

The DRAINING guard in remove_pending() makes cancel return false, but cancel still falls through to test_and_set_bit on HANDSHAKE_F_REQ_COMPLETED and drops the request's hr_file reference. Without another pin, if that is the last reference, sk_destruct frees the request while it is still linked on the drain loop's local list. Pin each request's hr_file under hn_lock before releasing the list, and drop that drain pin after the loop finishes with the request.

AnalysisAI

Kernel memory corruption and resource leakage in the Linux net/handshake subsystem stems from reversed list_splice_init() arguments in handshake_net_exit(), so pending TLS/handshake requests are never drained when a network namespace is destroyed. Fixing the splice direction then exposes a list-corruption and use-after-free race between the namespace-exit drain path and a concurrent handshake_req_cancel() (e.g. sunrpc TLS timeout), which can free a socket-backed handshake_req while it is still linked on the drain list. No public exploit identified at time of analysis; EPSS is low (0.20%, 10th percentile), and the record is not in CISA KEV.

Technical ContextAI

The affected component is the kernel's net/handshake facility, which brokers TLS handshakes for in-kernel sockets (notably sunrpc/NFS-over-TLS) by handing pending handshake_req objects to a userspace handshake daemon via an rhashtable and per-netns request list (hn->hn_requests). The root cause is an API-ordering defect: list_splice_init(list, head) moves 'list' onto 'head', but handshake_net_exit() passed the arguments reversed, so the local scratch list received nothing and the drain loop never ran, leaking a socket file reference and the handshake_req allocation per pending request. Correcting the order surfaces a concurrency class of bug (use-after-free / list corruption, akin to CWE-416 and CWE-362): after the splice, req->hr_list link pointers thread the stack-local list, so a racing __remove_pending_locked() can list_del a node off the drain list, hit LIST_POISON, or drop the last hr_file reference and let sk_destruct free a still-linked request. The CWE was not supplied (N/A) in the source data.

RemediationAI

Upstream fix available (stable commits ea5fe6a73ca5, 9ec20c9a5a04, and 8c35539db0ab); apply your distribution's kernel update that incorporates these commits - vendor-released stable lines referenced include the 6.12.93 and 7.0.12/7.1 series (https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/9ec20c9a5a04f2c3f1cf65d21f886d7aaa6189cd). Where an immediate kernel upgrade is not possible, reduce exposure by not enabling kernel TLS handshake consumers on the host - specifically avoid NFS/sunrpc over TLS (xprtsec) and other in-kernel handshake users, since the buggy drain path is only exercised when pending handshake requests exist at netns teardown; this trades off the ability to use TLS-secured kernel RPC transports. As a secondary control, restrict unprivileged user/network namespace creation (e.g. sysctl kernel.unprivileged_userns_clone=0 where supported) to limit local users' ability to rapidly create and destroy net namespaces and drive the race, at the cost of breaking rootless containers that rely on user namespaces. Do not rely on these workarounds long-term; patching is the definitive fix.

Vendor StatusVendor

SUSE

Severity: Critical
Product Status
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP7 Affected
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 15 SP7 Affected
SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 15 SP7 Affected
SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 15 SP7 Affected
SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension 16.0 Affected

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CVE-2026-63978 vulnerability details – vuln.today

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