Vulnerability in Linux
CVE-2026-80980
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net/smc: stop killed, freed and out_of_sync sharing a byte The three connection state flags are single-bit bitfields, so they occupy one byte of struct smc_connection and every store to one is a read-modify-write of the other two: u8 killed : 1; u8 freed : 1; u8 out_of_sync : 1; They are not written under a common lock. smc_cdc_msg_validate() sets out_of_sync from the receive tasklet, while smc_conn_kill() sets killed from process context under lock_sock(), and the receive path does not defer to the backlog when the socket is owned -- smc_cdc_msg_recv() takes only bh_lock_sock(). Give each flag its own byte so a store no longer touches its neighbours. All readers test them as booleans and are unchanged. struct smc_connection grows by two bytes.
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 (50.2th percentile), scored .
Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 50th percentile — 50.2% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.
EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.006 · newest: 0.006 · change: -0.000
Affected products
- Linux — versions 5.8
References
Frequently asked questions
- What is CVE-2026-80980?
- CVE-2026-80980 is a critical-severity vulnerability in Linux. CVSS score: 9.8/10. Published 2026-09-11.
- How severe is CVE-2026-80980?
- Critical severity. CVSS v3 base score is 9.8 out of 10.