Vulnerability in Linux

CVE-2026-74581

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: ipv6: clear suppressed fib6 rule result fib6_rule_suppress() drops a suppressed route with ip6_rt_put_flags(), but leaves res->rt6 pointing at the released rt6_info. If no later rule supplies a replacement, fib6_rule_lookup() still sees res.rt6 and returns that stale dst to its caller. A suppressing rule can therefore leak a released route back to rt6_lookup(), and the next put hits rcuref_put_slowpath() from dst_release(). Clear res->rt6 when suppressing the route so suppressed lookups fall through to the null dst instead of reusing the released one.

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: 0.004 (34.2th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 34th percentile — 34.2% 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-2026-74581: held from 0.004 to 0.004.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.004 · newest: 0.004 · change: +0.000

Affected products

  • Linux — versions 5.16, ee38eb8cf9a7323884c2b8e0adbbeb2192d31e29

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-74581?
CVE-2026-74581 is a critical-severity vulnerability in Linux. CVSS score: 9.8/10. Published 2026-08-21.
How severe is CVE-2026-74581?
Critical severity. CVSS v3 base score is 9.8 out of 10.