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Linux Kernel EUVDEUVD-2026-59146

| CVE-2026-72247 HIGH
2026-08-15 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67 GHSA-hcwx-4hjx-599v
7.5
CVSS 3.1 · Vendor: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
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Severity by source

Vendor (416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67) PRIMARY
7.5 HIGH
AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
vuln.today AI
5.9 MEDIUM

AC:H because exploitation requires non-default ORIG-only or REPL-only conntrack zone configuration; default bidirectional zones are unaffected by the mismatch.

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

Primary rating from Vendor (416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67).

CVSS VectorVendor: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

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

Lifecycle Timeline

5
Analysis Generated
Aug 17, 2026 - 07:55 vuln.today
CVSS changed
Aug 17, 2026 - 06:22 NVD
7.5 (HIGH)
Patch available
Aug 15, 2026 - 07:20 EUVD
CVE Published
Aug 15, 2026 - 06:21 cve.org
HIGH 7.5
CVE Published
Aug 15, 2026 - 06:21 cve.org
UNKNOWN (no severity yet)

DescriptionCVE.org

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

netfilter: nf_conncount: fix zone comparison in tuple dedup

The "already exists" dedup logic in __nf_conncount_add() decides whether a connection has already been counted and can be skipped instead of incrementing the connlimit count. It compares the conntrack zone of a list entry with the zone of the connection being added using nf_ct_zone_id() and nf_ct_zone_equal(), passing conn->zone.dir or zone->dir as the direction argument.

Those helpers take enum ip_conntrack_dir values: IP_CT_DIR_ORIGINAL is 0 and IP_CT_DIR_REPLY is 1. However, zone->dir is a u8 bitmask: NF_CT_ZONE_DIR_ORIG is 1, NF_CT_ZONE_DIR_REPL is 2 and NF_CT_DEFAULT_ZONE_DIR is 3. Passing that bitmask as the enum direction shifts the meaning of every non-zero value. An ORIG-only zone passes 1 and is tested as REPLY, while REPL-only and default zones pass 2 or 3 and test bits beyond the valid direction range. In those cases nf_ct_zone_id() can fall back to NF_CT_DEFAULT_ZONE_ID instead of using the real zone id, so different zones can be treated as equal and dedup collapses to tuple equality alone.

nf_conncount stores and compares the original-direction tuple for a connection. If an skb already has an attached conntrack entry, get_ct_or_tuple_from_skb() explicitly copies ct->tuplehash[IP_CT_DIR_ORIGINAL].tuple, regardless of the packet's ctinfo. Therefore the zone comparison in the tuple dedup path must use IP_CT_DIR_ORIGINAL as well; the zone direction bitmask describes where a zone id applies, not which direction this conncount tuple represents.

Fix the two dedup comparisons by passing IP_CT_DIR_ORIGINAL directly. Do not special-case NF_CT_DEFAULT_ZONE_DIR and do not compare raw zone ids: using the existing helpers with IP_CT_DIR_ORIGINAL preserves the direction-aware NF_CT_DEFAULT_ZONE_ID fallback. A default bidirectional zone contains the ORIG bit, so it naturally returns the real zone id; reply-only zones continue to fall back for original-direction tuple comparisons.

AnalysisAI

Connection limit bypass in the Linux kernel's netfilter nf_conncount subsystem allows network-reachable attackers to exhaust host resources by exploiting incorrect zone direction bitmask handling in tuple deduplication. The bug in __nf_conncount_add() conflates the u8 zone direction bitmask (NF_CT_ZONE_DIR_ORIG=1, NF_CT_ZONE_DIR_REPL=2, NF_CT_DEFAULT_ZONE_DIR=3) with the ip_conntrack_dir enum (IP_CT_DIR_ORIGINAL=0, IP_CT_DIR_REPLY=1), causing non-default directional zones to be erroneously treated as equivalent and bypassing per-connection counting. No active exploitation is confirmed (EPSS 0.22%, 13th percentile); upstream fixes have been committed across multiple stable kernel branches.

Technical ContextAI

The vulnerability resides in net/netfilter/nf_conncount.c, the Linux kernel subsystem used by xt_connlimit and related modules to enforce per-address or per-zone connection limits. Conntrack zones allow firewalls to maintain separate connection tracking tables for overlapping IP spaces (e.g., VPNs, multi-tenant environments, network function virtualization). The zone direction field (zone->dir) is a u8 bitmask where bit 0 = ORIG direction, bit 1 = REPLY direction, and both bits set = default bidirectional. The helpers nf_ct_zone_id() and nf_ct_zone_equal() instead expect an ip_conntrack_dir enum (0=ORIG, 1=REPLY). Passing the bitmask value directly shifts semantics: an ORIG-only zone (bitmask=1) is incorrectly tested as REPLY direction, while REPL-only (bitmask=2) and default (bitmask=3) zones test bit positions beyond the valid enum range, causing nf_ct_zone_id() to fall back to NF_CT_DEFAULT_ZONE_ID. This makes distinct zone identifiers appear equal, collapsing deduplication to tuple equality alone and enabling connection limit bypass. The correct fix passes IP_CT_DIR_ORIGINAL (0) unconditionally, consistent with nf_conncount's design of storing original-direction tuples regardless of ctinfo.

RemediationAI

Update to a patched Linux kernel version: 5.10.261, 5.15.212, 6.1.178, 6.6.145, 6.12.97, 6.18.40, 7.1.5, or 7.2-rc4 or later for the respective stable branch in use. Upstream stable patches are available at https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/35a56e2a46b90e6bd4ca816b80e9cb8d20dfc3ce and the related branch commits referenced in the NVD advisory. Distribution-specific backports (RHEL, Debian, Ubuntu, SUSE) should be monitored and applied as released. As a compensating control where immediate patching is not possible, avoid configuring ORIG-only (NF_CT_ZONE_DIR_ORIG) or REPL-only (NF_CT_ZONE_DIR_REPL) directional conntrack zones; the default bidirectional zone (NF_CT_DEFAULT_ZONE_DIR) is not affected by the bug. If connlimit rules are security-critical in affected deployments, supplement with upstream perimeter rate-limiting (e.g., per-source connection rate limits on border appliances) to compensate for the broken per-zone accounting until patching is complete.

Vendor StatusVendor

SUSE

Severity: Moderate
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 Not-Affected

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EUVD-2026-59146 vulnerability details – vuln.today

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