Vulnerability in Linux
CVE-2026-72251
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: netfilter: nf_nat_sip: reload possible stale data pointer quoting sashiko: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [..] noticed a potential memory bug and header corruption involving the SIP NAT helper. In net/netfilter/nf_nat_sip.c:nf_nat_sip(): if (skb_ensure_writable(skb, skb->len)) { nf_ct_helper_log(skb, ct, "cannot mangle packet"); return NF_DROP; } uh = (void *)skb->data + protoff; uh->dest = ct_sip_info->forced_dport; if (!nf_nat_mangle_udp_packet(skb, ct, ctinfo, protoff, 0, 0, NULL, 0)) { If a cloned or fragmented SKB is reallocated by skb_ensure_writable(), the old data buffer is freed. However, nf_nat_sip() fails to update *dptr to point to the new buffer. It also appears to use nf_nat_mangle_udp_packet() on what could be a TCP packet, which would overwrite the sequence number with a checksum update. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ nf_conntrack_sip linerizes skbs, hence no fragmented skb can be seen. But clones are possible, so rebuild dptr. Disable nf_nat_mangle_udp_packet() branch for TCP streams. It doesn't look like this can ever happen, else we should have received bug reports about this, so just check the conntrack is UDP and drop otherwise. The calling conntrack_sip set ->forced_dport for SIP_HDR_VIA_UDP messages, so I don't think this is ever expected to be true for a TCP stream.
Published · last modified .
CVSS v3 metric
CVSS v3 base score 9.8 (Critical). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.
EPSS exploit prediction
EPSS: 0.008 (53.3th percentile), scored .
Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 53rd percentile — 53.3% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.
EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.007 · newest: 0.008 · change: +0.000
Affected products
- Linux — versions 6.6.145, 7.2, 6.18.40
References
Frequently asked questions
- What is CVE-2026-72251?
- CVE-2026-72251 is a critical-severity vulnerability in Linux. CVSS score: 9.8/10. Published 2026-08-15.
- How severe is CVE-2026-72251?
- Critical severity. CVSS v3 base score is 9.8 out of 10.