CVE-2026-74621 net/sched: act_ct: fix sk_buff leak when the header checks reject a packet
A memory leak in the Linux kernel's traffic control connection tracking action allows attackers to cause denial of service by sending malformed packets.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Over the internet
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2026-74621?
CVE-2026-74621 is a high-severity memory corruption vulnerability in Linux, published on 22 Aug 2026. An attacker can exploit it over the internet without logging in, with no action from the victim.
Official description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
net/sched: act_ct: fix sk_buff leak when the header checks reject a packet
tcf_ct_handle_fragments() runs its header sanity checks before handing anything to the defragmentation engine:
if (family == NFPROTO_IPV4) err = tcf_ct_ipv4_is_fragment(skb, &frag); else err = tcf_ct_ipv6_is_fragment(skb, &frag); if (err || !frag) return err;
tcf_ct_ipv4_is_fragment() returns -EINVAL or -ENOMEM; tcf_ct_ipv6_is_fragment() adds -EPROTO when ipv6_find_hdr() fails. None of them frees or queues the skb, so on that path the caller still owns it.
tcf_ct_act() however funnels every non-zero return into the ownership-transfer exit:
err = tcf_ct_handle_fragments(net, skb, family, p->zone, &defrag); if (err) goto out_frag; ... out_frag: if (err != -EINPROGRESS) tcf_action_inc_drop_qstats(&c->common); return TC_ACT_CONSUMED;
TC_ACT_CONSUMED means the action took ownership of the skb, so no caller frees it - sch_handle_ingress(), sch_handle_egress() and tcf_qevent_handle() all deliberately skip the free for that verdict. The skb is therefore orphaned: one sk_buff plus its data buffer is leaked per malformed packet, unbounded. Note the drop counter is already incremented for these errors, so the statistics claim a drop that never happens.
Three different ownership states reach out_frag: today - the skb may be queued by the defrag engine (-EINPROGRESS), already freed by nf_ct_handle_fragments(), or still owned by us. Tell the caller which of those it is, and free the packet ourselves in the last case, which restores the TC_ACT_SHOT behaviour that predated the Fixes: commit.
Reproduced on v7.2-rc6 with a 54-byte frame carrying a 40-byte IPv6 header with nexthdr = 0 (hop-by-hop) and nothing after it, on a clsact ingress chain with "action ct". kmemleak reports one leaked 232-byte skbuff_head_cache object plus its 704-byte data buffer per packet; with this patch it reports none.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-74621?
How do I fix CVE-2026-74621?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Upgrade to the fixed version. Memory-safe languages, compiler hardening and fuzzing prevent most new cases. More about Memory corruption.
Is CVE-2026-74621 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-74621 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as AZL-97080, BELL-CVE-2026-74621, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-74621, GHSA-pjmq-j37r-3mm4, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-74621.