CVE-2026-98441

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

net/sched: act_ct: avoid modifying shared unconfirmed ct entry

In a case where skb with an unconfirmed ct entry gets cloned, we may end up processing both again but with different sets of extensions.

The series of events:

1. The first clone wants to commit and runs the helpers wiring up the extension pointer into the expectation list.
2. Then it looses the confirmation keeping the entry unconfirmed.
3. Second clone now wants to commit labels or run NAT and adds the new extension for that breaking the pointer in the expectation list causing UAF on the destruction path later.

While this is possible to trigger, there should be no practical network pipeline where we need to process both clones without modifications in the same zone. So, lets just reset the entry in case for some reason we got an skb with a shared one. This doesnt affect any known use cases, but avoids any potential problems with sharing and modification of the unconfirmed ct entry.

Unlike openvswitch module, act_ct allows for NAT without commit. Changing that would be a uAPI break. So, act_ct needs to reset on NAT regardless of the commit flag to avoid reallocation of the extension space. This, however, doesnt really change the picture for sensible networking cases as there should be no need to run the same packet twice (before and after the clone) through conntrack without packet header or zone changes and without commit.

The fixes tag points to the introduction of helpers, since thats the main UAF trigger for the sharing.

Affected Software

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2b783c562c3238ff50c34fd7a72a735c9cc73d9a
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/4a04ed91575819fb1859311113e95700b709bec7
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b097d9d7a5b09c8ec5c4c1a08e35ac5a66b06b44
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/c812bb4aea13d385d048b5b24756aee2edf6f99e
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f85009dfcd65e5969526b0db7a49b5413746e630