Vulnerability in Linux

CVE-2026-72296

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: ife: require ETH_HLEN to be pullable in ife_decode() ife decode may return after making only the outer IFE header and metadata pullable. The caller then passes the decapsulated packet to eth_type_trans(), which expects the inner Ethernet header to be accessible from the linear data area. With a malformed IFE frame, the inner Ethernet header may still be shorter than ETH_HLEN in the linear area, which can lead to a crash in the original code. Fix this by extending the pull check in ife_decode() so that the inner Ethernet header is also guaranteed to be pullable before returning.

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 9.1 (Critical). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.007 (52.6th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 53rd percentile — 52.6% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS trend (30 days)EPSS over the last 30 days for CVE-2026-72296: held from 0.007 to 0.007.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.007 · newest: 0.007 · change: +0.000

Affected products

  • Linux — versions 7.2-rc1, ef6980b6becb1afd9d82a4f043749a10ae81bf14, 6.6.145

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-72296?
CVE-2026-72296 is a critical-severity vulnerability in Linux. CVSS score: 9.1/10. Published 2026-08-15.
How severe is CVE-2026-72296?
Critical severity. CVSS v3 base score is 9.1 out of 10.