CVE-2026-23074 net/sched: Enforce that teql can only be used as root qdisc

What is CVE-2026-23074?

CVE-2026-23074 is a high-severity use after free vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 4 Feb 2026. 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:

net/sched: Enforce that teql can only be used as root qdisc

Design intent of teql is that it is only supposed to be used as root qdisc. We need to check for that constraint.

Although not important, I will describe the scenario that unearthed this issue for the curious.

GangMin Kim <[email protected]> managed to concot a scenario as follows:

ROOT qdisc 1:0 (QFQ) ├── class 1:1 (weight=15, lmax=16384) netem with delay 6.4s └── class 1:2 (weight=1, lmax=1514) teql

GangMin sends a packet which is enqueued to 1:1 (netem). Any invocation of dequeue by QFQ from this class will not return a packet until after 6.4s. In the meantime, a second packet is sent and it lands on 1:2. teql's enqueue will return success and this will activate class 1:2. Main issue is that teql only updates the parent visible qlen (sch->q.qlen) at dequeue. Since QFQ will only call dequeue if peek succeeds (and teql's peek always returns NULL), dequeue will never be called and thus the qlen will remain as 0. With that in mind, when GangMin updates 1:2's lmax value, the qfq_change_class calls qfq_deact_rm_from_agg. Since the child qdisc's qlen was not incremented, qfq fails to deactivate the class, but still frees its pointers from the aggregate. So when the first packet is rescheduled after 6.4 seconds (netem's delay), a dangling pointer is accessed causing GangMin's causing a UAF.

Weakness: CWE-825, CWE-416

Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-23074?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2026-23074?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Upgrade to the fixed version. These bugs are found with fuzzing and sanitisers and avoided by memory-safe languages. More about Use after free.

Is CVE-2026-23074 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-23074 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

• CVE-2026-53266 Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2013-6282 Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2022-0185 Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2013-2094 Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2026-53362 Linux Kernel Unspecified Exploited High 7.8

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as AZL-77238, BELL-CVE-2026-23074, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-23074, GHSA-7cwq-2xv8-7cqw, RHSA-2026:3810, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2026-23074 and 4 more.