# CVE-2026-98968: amt: send the relay's General Query directly from the receive path


- **Severity:** High 8.1 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 23 Oct 2026
- **Updated:** 24 Oct 2026
- **Also known as:** AZL-110786, BELL-CVE-2026-98968, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-98968, GHSA-phwh-mpfm-5g26, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-98968

## What is CVE-2026-98968?

CVE-2026-98968 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux, published on 23 Oct 2026. 

### Official description

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

amt: send the relay's General Query directly from the receive path

An skb queued in a qdisc can outlive the tunnel it references
through a raw pointer in skb->cb. For example, with igmp_qrv set
to 1 on the relay a tunnel lives for 135s, so a netem delay of
180s on the amt device outlives it; when the tunnel expires and is
freed, the subsequent dequeue triggers a use-after-free in
amt_dev_xmit().

  BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in amt_dev_xmit+0x2763/0x2e20
  Call Trace:
   amt_dev_xmit+0x2763/0x2e20 [drivers/net/amt.c:1262]
   dev_hard_start_xmit+0x22f/0x620
   sch_direct_xmit+0x12e/0xac0
   netem_dequeue+0x333/0xc50
   net_tx_action+0x35c/0xa60

amt_send_igmp_gq() and amt_send_mld_gq() are only called from
amt_request_handler(), inside the rcu_read_lock_bh() section of
amt_rcv(). amt_request_handler() already has the tunnel the query is
for: it found or created it inside that section. Queuing the query with
dev_queue_xmit() only leads back into amt_dev_xmit(), which strips the
Ethernet header and calls amt_send_membership_query() for that tunnel.

Make that call directly from the two senders instead, the same way
amt_send_advertisement() transmits from the receive path. The query
never waits in a qdisc, the tunnel is only dereferenced inside the
RCU section that found or created it, and nothing is stored in
skb->cb, so no lookup or refcount is needed. Remove the query branch
of amt_dev_xmit(), amt_skb_cb() and struct amt_skb_cb, which have no
users left.

Behaviour changes:
 - The relay's own General Queries no longer pass through the amt
   device's egress path: its qdisc, tc egress (clsact/tcx), the
   netfilter egress hook and packet taps. They are still visible as
   UDP on the underlay.
 - A query that is sent successfully is no longer counted as
   tx_dropped. The old query branch left through the unlock label,
   which counted every sent query as dropped.
 - A query that reaches amt_dev_xmit() on a relay from elsewhere,
   such as a userspace querier, is now dropped at the IGMP/MLD type
   switch. Before, it trusted whatever skb->cb held, and a NULL
   tunnel hit the WARN_ON(1).

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-98968?


## How do I fix CVE-2026-98968?

Upgrade to a fixed version.

## Is CVE-2026-98968 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-98968 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2026-98968 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-98968 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux, published on 23 Oct 2026. 
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-98968 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-2026-98968/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-98968/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-98968
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-98968
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-98968

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-98968/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.