CVE-2026-98541

What it is

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: fou: reject omitted FOU_ATTR_IPPROTO on FOU_ENCAP_DIRECT Commit 7a9bc9e3f423 ("fou: Don't allow 0 for FOU_ATTR_IPPROTO.") added NLA_POLICY_MIN(NLA_U8, 1) to fou_nl_policy[FOU_ATTR_IPPROTO], which rejects an explicitly supplied FOU_ATTR_IPPROTO == 0 attribute with -ERANGE. However, FOU_ATTR_IPPROTO is an optional netlink attribute. When a user sends FOU_CMD_ADD with FOU_ATTR_TYPE set to FOU_ENCAP_DIRECT and omits FOU_ATTR_IPPROTO entirely, nla_policy validation succeeds and parse_nl_config() leaves cfg->protocol as 0 (from memset(cfg, 0, sizeof(*cfg))). fou_create() then creates a FOU_ENCAP_DIRECT socket with fou->protocol == 0. In fou_udp_recv(), returning -fou->protocol to udp_queue_rcv_one_skb() triggers IP protocol resubmission when fou->protocol > 0, whereas returning 0 tells the UDP tunnel layer that the skb was consumed without freeing it. When fou->protocol == 0, every packet received on the socket returns 0 from fou_udp_recv() and leaks the sk_buff. Reject FOU_ENCAP_DIRECT when !cfg->protocol in fou_create() so that creating a direct encapsulation port without FOU_ATTR_IPPROTO fails with -EINVAL while leaving FOU_CMD_DEL and FOU_CMD_GET (which share parse_nl_config()) unaffected. Tested in QEMU against Linux 7.3.0-rc3 by sending a FOU_CMD_ADD Generic Netlink request with FOU_ATTR_PORT = 5555 and FOU_ATTR_TYPE = FOU_ENCAP_DIRECT while omitting FOU_ATTR_IPPROTO. On the unfixed kernel, FOU_CMD_ADD succeeds (err = 0), FOU_CMD_GET reports fou->type = 1 and fou->protocol = 0, and sending 4000 UDP packets to 127.0.0.1:5555 leaks all 4000 sk_buffs (SUnreclaim in /proc/meminfo grows from 41456 kB to 59008 kB, +17552 kB); with this patch applied, FOU_CMD_ADD is rejected with -EINVAL (-22).

At a glance

Exploit odds

0.2% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days (EPSS).

Fix

No patch or advisory is linked yet. Look at mitigations or restrict exposure.

Timeline

1. 2026-10-18 16:17 UTC PublishedDisclosed publicly on CVE.org and NVD
2. 2026-10-19 10:19 UTC Last updatedMost recent change to the record

Why it ranks here

• Exploited in the wild: no, CISA does not list it.
• Exploit odds: 0.2% in the next 30 days (EPSS).
• Severity: not scored yet.
• Fix: none linked yet, which raises it.

Details

Published

2026-10-18 16:17 UTC

Last modified

2026-10-19 10:19 UTC

Exploit probability

0.2% · EPSS, next 30 days

Record status

Received

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