Vulnerability in Linux

CVE-2026-72429

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ipv6: ioam: fix type confusion of dst_entry IOAM uses a dummy dst_entry(null_dst) to mark that the destination should not be changed after the transformation. This dst is stored in the IOAM lwt state and may be passed to dst_cache_set_ip6(). However, the IPv6 dst cache path eventually calls rt6_get_cookie(), which treats the dst_entry as part of a struct rt6_info. Since the null_dst was embedded directly as a struct dst_entry in struct ioam6_lwt, this resulted in an invalid cast and rt6_get_cookie() reading fields from the wrong object. In practice, the wrong cookie is not used while dst->obsolete is zero, but rt6_get_cookie() may also access per-cpu value when rt->sernum is zero. In this case, rt->sernum aliases ioam6_lwt::cache::reset_ts, which can become zero, making this a potential invalid pointer access. Fix this by embedding a full struct rt6_info for the dummy IPv6 route and passing its dst member to the dst APIs.

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: 0.006 (49.1th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 49th percentile — 49.1% 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-2026-72429: held from 0.006 to 0.006.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.006 · newest: 0.006 · change: +0.000

Affected products

  • Linux — versions 47ce7c854563fe8450e9cb8dcd62c6470e28076b, 7.2-rc1, 6.16

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-72429?
CVE-2026-72429 is a critical-severity vulnerability in Linux. CVSS score: 9.8/10. Published 2026-08-15.
How severe is CVE-2026-72429?
Critical severity. CVSS v3 base score is 9.8 out of 10.