CVE-2026-98123

CVE Details

Release Date:	2026-09-25
Impact:	Moderate	What is this?

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: sctp: fix soft lockup from unpadded ASCONF-ACK parameter iteration sctp_verify_asconf() walks ASCONF-ACK parameters with sctp_walk_params(), which advances by SCTP_PAD4(length), while the consumer sctp_get_asconf_response() iterates the same parameters advancing by the raw length, without padding. A single odd-length parameter desynchronises the two walks and makes the consumer interpret attacker-controlled bytes at a misaligned offset. When those bytes yield a length of zero, the while loop over asconf_ack_len makes no progress, spinning forever in softirq context, and the watchdog reports a soft lockup. All reads stay within the received skb, so the lockup is a pure remote denial of service. A remote peer can trigger it with a crafted ASCONF-ACK on an ADD-IP enabled association with an outstanding ASCONF (RFC 5061 section 4.1.2 requires the chunk to be authenticated, but the predefined empty key id 0 allows the peer to compute the same association HMAC from publicly exchanged parameters, so the gate does not help). The SCTP_PARAM_ERR_CAUSE case of sctp_verify_asconf() also performs no length check, letting a parameter without a complete error header reach the consumer, which reads errhdr.cause past the end of the parameter, an out-of-bounds read. Reject SCTP_PARAM_ERR_CAUSE parameters shorter than sizeof(struct sctp_addip_param) + sizeof(struct sctp_errhdr) at the verifier, and advance the consumer iterator with the same padding rule as the verifier to keep the two walks in lockstep. The verifier change guarantees a complete error header in every ERR_CAUSE parameter the consumer can see, so the consumer's asconf_ack_len check is dropped and it returns err_param->cause directly. The consumer padding fix is still required because odd lengths remain valid for SCTP_PARAM_ERR_CAUSE per RFC 5061. The issue was found by ZeroHive, a vulnerability hunting agent at Tencent Yunding Lab.

See more information about CVE-2026-98123 from MITRE CVE dictionary and NIST NVD

NOTE: The following CVSS metrics and score provided are preliminary and subject to review.

CVSS v3 metrics

Base Score:	5.5
Vector String:	CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Version:	3.1
Attack Vector:	Local
Attack Complexity:	Low
Privileges Required:	Low
User Interaction:	None
Scope:	Unchanged
Confidentiality Impact:	None
Integrity Impact:	None
Availability Impact:	High

Errata information

Platform	Errata	Release Date
Oracle Linux version 9 (kernel-uek)	ELSA-2026-500374	2026-10-07