CVE-2021-46992 netfilter: nftables: avoid overflows in nft_hash_buckets()

High 7.8 Published 28 Feb 2024 Updated 5 Aug 2026

An integer overflow in the Linux kernel's nftables hash bucket calculation can cause a shift-out-of-bounds error, leading to a denial of service.

Exploited in the wild: Not known
Login needed: Any signed-in user
Attackable: Local or same network only
Victim action needed: Not needed
Fix: Available

What is CVE-2021-46992?

CVE-2021-46992 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 28 Feb 2024. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

Official description

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

netfilter: nftables: avoid overflows in nft_hash_buckets()

Number of buckets being stored in 32bit variables, we have to ensure that no overflows occur in nft_hash_buckets()

syzbot injected a size == 0x40000000 and reported:

UBSAN: shift-out-of-bounds in ./include/linux/log2.h:57:13 shift exponent 64 is too large for 64-bit type 'long unsigned int' CPU: 1 PID: 29539 Comm: syz-executor.4 Not tainted 5.12.0-rc7-syzkaller #0 Hardware name: Google Google Compute Engine/Google Compute Engine, BIOS Google 01/01/2011 Call Trace: __dump_stack lib/dump_stack.c:79 [inline] dump_stack+0x141/0x1d7 lib/dump_stack.c:120 ubsan_epilogue+0xb/0x5a lib/ubsan.c:148 __ubsan_handle_shift_out_of_bounds.cold+0xb1/0x181 lib/ubsan.c:327 __roundup_pow_of_two include/linux/log2.h:57 [inline] nft_hash_buckets net/netfilter/nft_set_hash.c:411 [inline] nft_hash_estimate.cold+0x19/0x1e net/netfilter/nft_set_hash.c:652 nft_select_set_ops net/netfilter/nf_tables_api.c:3586 [inline] nf_tables_newset+0xe62/0x3110 net/netfilter/nf_tables_api.c:4322 nfnetlink_rcv_batch+0xa09/0x24b0 net/netfilter/nfnetlink.c:488 nfnetlink_rcv_skb_batch net/netfilter/nfnetlink.c:612 [inline] nfnetlink_rcv+0x3af/0x420 net/netfilter/nfnetlink.c:630 netlink_unicast_kernel net/netlink/af_netlink.c:1312 [inline] netlink_unicast+0x533/0x7d0 net/netlink/af_netlink.c:1338 netlink_sendmsg+0x856/0xd90 net/netlink/af_netlink.c:1927 sock_sendmsg_nosec net/socket.c:654 [inline] sock_sendmsg+0xcf/0x120 net/socket.c:674 ____sys_sendmsg+0x6e8/0x810 net/socket.c:2350 ___sys_sendmsg+0xf3/0x170 net/socket.c:2404 __sys_sendmsg+0xe5/0x1b0 net/socket.c:2433 do_syscall_64+0x2d/0x70 arch/x86/entry/common.c:46

Weakness: CWE-125

Which versions are affected by CVE-2021-46992?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2021-46992?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Is CVE-2021-46992 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2021-46992 in the wild and no public exploit code.

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2021-46992, GHSA-4hg3-pc9r-pp32, UBUNTU-CVE-2021-46992.