Vulnerability in Linux

CVE-2026-74704

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net/sched: sch_cake: drop WARN_ON(1) for malformed packets in ACK filter The sch_cake ACK filter parses packets to find the TCP header and filter duplicated ACKs if the flow is backlogged. The parsing code contains a WARN_ON(1) which can be triggered by a malformed IP header in certain cases. Depending on the system configuration, this leads either to either spamming dmesg with warnings, or a panic if panic_on_warn is set. The code already correctly skips the offending packet in the branch that triggers the warning, so the WARN_ON itself doesn't really serve any purpose. So just drop it altogether to avoid the inconvenient side effects.

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 8.2 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:L/I:N/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.004 (36.4th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 36th percentile — 36.4% 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-2026-74704: held from 0.004 to 0.004.

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

Affected products

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-74704?
CVE-2026-74704 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux. CVSS score: 8.2/10. Published 2026-08-22.
How severe is CVE-2026-74704?
High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 8.2 out of 10.