Vulnerability in Linux

CVE-2026-81003

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net/iucv: filter frames in afiucv_hs_rcv() by ingress device afiucv_hs_rcv() selects a socket from iucv_sk_list by matching four 8-byte name fields in the transport header alone. No check is made against the net_device the frame arrived on. This can cause a frame arriving on any netdev to be delivered to an AF_IUCV socket. Three problems follow. First, a frame arriving over HiperSockets can be delivered to a socket bound to the classic z/VM IUCV transport, which has iucv->hs_dev == NULL. iucv_sock_bind() takes the classic path whenever the requested userid matches iucv_userid, even on a guest that also has a HiperSockets device carrying the same identifier. The child socket created by afiucv_hs_callback_syn() for such a match inherits hs_dev = NULL and transport = AF_IUCV_TRANS_HIPER, so the first send() on it returns -ENODEV. The socket delivered to accept() is unusable. Second, a frame arriving on one netdev can be delivered to a socket bound to a different IQD device. Which can lead to - Accept-queue exhaustion (DoS) - Attacker-controlled peer identity in the child socket - Data injection into existing sockets - Fabric noise on the IQD fabric, where bogus replies are sent - killing established connections Third, all AF_IUCV sockets live in init_net, as iucv_sock_alloc() calls sk_alloc(&init_net, ...). But even frames arriving on netdev devices in a namespace can be delivered to an IUCV socket. So a process in an unprivileged user and network namespace holding only the CAP_NET_RAW capability valid within that namespace can send a raw ETH_P_AF_IUCV frame on its own lo device and have it matched against init_net sockets. Fix all three by skipping any socket whose hs_dev does not match the ingress device. A classic z/VM IUCV socket has hs_dev == NULL; the ingress dev is never NULL, so classic sockets are skipped automatically. An unbound HIPER socket also has hs_dev == NULL and is skipped. A bound HIPER socket is only reachable from the exact IQD device it was bound to. Because hs_dev is always a device in init_net (iucv_sock_bind() scans for_each_netdev_rcu(&init_net, ...) exclusively), a frame whose ingress device belongs to another namespace never matches any socket. Note that AF_IUCV over HiperSockets provides no per-connection authentication: no sequence numbers, no TLS, no nonce. The four name fields identifying a connection are exchanged in plaintext on the shared HiperSockets segment (VCHID). Any host on the same HiperSockets segment could spoof any frame type against an existing connection. That is a protocol-level property unchanged by this patch. The fix reduces the attack surface to peers present on the same HiperSockets segment.

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 8.1 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:H/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.003 (23.6th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 24th percentile — 23.6% 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-2026-81003: held from 0.005 to 0.003.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.005 · newest: 0.003 · change: -0.002

Affected products

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-81003?
CVE-2026-81003 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux. CVSS score: 8.1/10. Published 2026-09-11.
How severe is CVE-2026-81003?
High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 8.1 out of 10.