Vulnerability in Linux

CVE-2026-80603

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: netfilter: nf_conntrack_irc: fix parse_dcc() off-by-one OOB read parse_dcc() treats data_end as an inclusive end pointer, but its only caller passes data_limit = ib_ptr + datalen, which points one past the last valid byte. The newline search loop iterates while tmp <= data_end, so when no newline is present, *tmp is read at tmp == data_end, one byte beyond the region filled by skb_header_pointer(). irc_buffer is kmalloc'd as MAX_SEARCH_SIZE + 1 bytes and datalen is capped at MAX_SEARCH_SIZE, so the stray read does not fault. The byte is uninitialized or stale; if it contains an ASCII digit, simple_strtoul will consume it and produce a wrong DCC IP or port in the conntrack expectation. The extra allocation byte is also a fragile guard: if the cap or allocation size changes, this becomes a real out-of-bounds read. Change the loop and its post-loop check to use strict less-than, consistent with the caller's exclusive-end convention. Update the function comment accordingly.

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:H/A:N.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.006 (46.9th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 47th percentile — 46.9% 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-2026-80603: held from 0.004 to 0.006.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.004 · newest: 0.006 · change: +0.002

Affected products

  • Linux — versions 2.6.12

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-80603?
CVE-2026-80603 is a critical-severity vulnerability in Linux. CVSS score: 9.1/10. Published 2026-08-28.
How severe is CVE-2026-80603?
Critical severity. CVSS v3 base score is 9.1 out of 10.