# CVE-2026-63981: net/sched: act_mirred: Fix blockcast recursion bypass leading to stack overflow

> An unprivileged user can trigger a kernel stack overflow via TC mirred blockcast recursion, causing a system crash.

- **Severity:** Not scored
- **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:** Yes
- **Published:** 19 Jul 2026
- **Updated:** 19 Jul 2026
- **Also known as:** DEBIAN-CVE-2026-63981, GHSA-v39p-wrrc-5j75, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-63981

## What is CVE-2026-63981?

CVE-2026-63981 is a denial of service vulnerability in Linux, published on 19 Jul 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: act_mirred: Fix blockcast recursion bypass leading to stack overflow

tcf_mirred_act() checks sched_mirred_nest against MIRRED_NEST_LIMIT (4)
to prevent deep recursion.  However, when the action uses blockcast
(tcfm_blockid != 0), the function returns at the tcf_blockcast() call
BEFORE reaching the counter increment.  As a result, the recursion
counter never advances and the limit check is entirely bypassed.

When two devices share a TC egress block with a mirred blockcast rule,
a packet egressing on device A is mirrored to device B via blockcast;
device B's egress TC re-enters tcf_mirred_act() via blockcast and
mirrors back to A, creating an unbounded recursion loop:

  tcf_mirred_act -> tcf_blockcast -> tcf_mirred_to_dev -> dev_queue_xmit
  -> sch_handle_egress -> tcf_classify -> tcf_mirred_act -> (repeat)

This recursion continues until the kernel stack overflows.

The bug is reachable from an unprivileged user via
unshare(CLONE_NEWUSER | CLONE_NEWNET): user namespaces grant
CAP_NET_ADMIN in the new network namespace, which is sufficient to
create dummy devices, attach clsact qdiscs with shared blocks, and
install mirred blockcast filters.

 BUG: TASK stack guard page was hit at ffffc90000b7fff8
 Oops: stack guard page: 0000 [#1] SMP KASAN NOPTI
 CPU: 2 UID: 1000 PID: 169 Comm: poc Not tainted 7.0.0-rc7-next-20260410
 RIP: 0010:xas_find+0x17/0x480
 Call Trace:
  xa_find+0x17b/0x1d0
  tcf_mirred_act+0x640/0x1060
  tcf_action_exec+0x400/0x530
  basic_classify+0x128/0x1d0
  tcf_classify+0xd83/0x1150
  tc_run+0x328/0x620
  __dev_queue_xmit+0x797/0x3100
  tcf_mirred_to_dev+0x7b1/0xf70
  tcf_mirred_act+0x68a/0x1060
  [repeating ~30+ times until stack overflow]
 Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal exception in interrupt

Fix this by incrementing sched_mirred_nest before calling
tcf_blockcast() and decrementing it on return, mirroring the
non-blockcast path.  This ensures subsequent recursive entries see the
updated counter and are correctly limited by MIRRED_NEST_LIMIT.

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-63981?


## How do I fix CVE-2026-63981?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2026-63981 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-63981 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2026-63981 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-63981 is a denial of service vulnerability in Linux, published on 19 Jul 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-63981 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Linux. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-63981/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-63981/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-63981
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-63981
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-63981

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-63981/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.