What is CVE-2021-46996?

CVE-2021-46996 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux, classified under Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime. CVSS score: 5.5/10. Published 2024-02-28.

How severe is CVE-2021-46996?

Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.5 out of 10.

Vulnerability in Linux

CVE-2021-46996

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: netfilter: nftables: Fix a memleak from userdata error path in new objects Release object name if userdata allocation fails.

Published 2024-02-28 · last modified 2026-06-17.

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 5.5 (Medium). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.002 (14.3th percentile), scored 2026-10-01.

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 14th percentile — 14.3% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.002 · newest: 0.002 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Linux — versions b131c96496b369c7b14125e7c50e89ac7cec8051, 5.10, 0
Linux Kernel

Weakness classification (CWE)

CWE-401 — Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime

References

416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67 (Patch)
416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67 (Patch)
416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67 (Patch)
416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67 (Patch)

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2021-46996?: CVE-2021-46996 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux, classified under Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime. CVSS score: 5.5/10. Published 2024-02-28.
How severe is CVE-2021-46996?: Medium severity. CVSS v3 base score is 5.5 out of 10.