CVE-2026-97959 json
net/sched: cls_route: free emptied bucket on filter move
published last mo. modified 24d ago also EUVD-2026-86813
- cvss
- —
- not scored
- cisa kev
- Not listed
- not in CISA's catalog
- epss
- 0.2%
- EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 7%
- public exploits
- 0
- none known
Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
net/sched: cls_route: free emptied bucket on filter move
route4_change can move an existing filter to a different top-level bucket: route4_set_parms recomputes the handle from TCA_ROUTE4_TO/ FROM/IIF, and the handle-mismatch check is gated on the 'new' flag, so for an existing filter the new handle may differ from the old one and land in a different bucket. When this happens, the filter is unlinked from the old bucket, but the bucket itself is never freed once it goes empty. The stale empty bucket remains in head->table[], causing route4_delete to report *last=false even after the last live filter is gone. That pins the empty tcf_proto and causes a leak.
Fix this by refcounting the filters linked to a bucket and freeing the bucket when the count drops to zero. The existing scan in route4_delete goes away with it.
The count is updated at all sites that link or unlink a filter during add, change and delete, and the bucket is dropped from head->table[] as soon as it reaches zero.
Conditions to recreate the bug: CONFIG_NET_CLS_ROUTE4=y, CONFIG_NET_SCH_INGRESS=y, CONFIG_NET_CLS_ACT=y.
tc qdisc replace dev lo clsact tc filter add dev lo ingress protocol ip pref 100 route from 1 to 1 tc filter change dev lo ingress protocol ip pref 100 handle 0x10001 \ route from 1 to 2 tc filter del dev lo ingress protocol ip pref 100 handle 0x10002 \ route from 1 to 2 tc filter show dev lo ingress | grep -c 'pref 100 route chain 0 '
Patch / fix
- Linux Linux 5.10.271, 5.15.222, 6.1.189, 6.6.158, 6.12.111, 6.18.53, 7.2.7, 7.3
- linux Debian 12 6.1.190-1
- linux Debian 13 6.12.111-1
- linux Debian 14 7.2.7-1
- linux-6.12 Debian 12 6.12.111-1~deb12u1
debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-97959
- linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-202.212
- linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-149.149
- linux Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-42.42
- linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1119.126
- linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1069.74
- linux-aws Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1016.17
- linux-gcp Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1120.130
- linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1073.81
ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2026-97959
Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0
- kernel-source openSUSE Tumbleweed 7.2.9-1.1
opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:12074-1
- kernel Azure Linux 3.0 6.6.158.1-1
azure linux advisories AZL-104640
Azure Linux vulnerability data, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, from https://github.com/microsoft/AzureLinuxVulnerabilityData via OSV, under the MIT licence; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. MIT
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/9e7741b41a25b9d49df4d262fa314342e6f95c50 commit
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/48d38bf8c22a05fde07ba1f885cde27b851649a2 commit
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/cc99d26b12431e4e4d0e346ec32764eb42c0aed9 commit
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/41e94079200aaf0cdbe4594b0af75710b33da124 commit
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/2e2f130951d34871b0643bf700164d97cff4b427 commit
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/f8495d67434e1cb7e511297687ca55fdb28e4c20 commit
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/81dd117c04422c6d0c7974aba9fa6a0ba370959b commit
- git.kernel.org/stable/c/1853f30cf5c84971f99788a76207c6f745380896 commit
Is CVE-2026-97959 in your stack? Fencer shows which of your repositories are affected as soon as an advisory lands, and opens the fix as a pull request.
Check with FencerVendor advisories
What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.
red hat product security vex CVE-2026-97959 updated cvss 5.5
kernel: net/sched: cls_route: free emptied bucket on filter move
-
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 moreaffected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
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Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-8affected: no fix available “Fix deferred”
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Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-9 Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 5 openshift/ose-rhel-coreos-9not affected: vulnerable code not present
Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf
Exploit prediction
0.18% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 7% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-11).
Affected products
- Linux Linux
Classification
- Technology feeds
References
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/9e7741b41a25b9d49df4d262fa314342e6f95c50
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/48d38bf8c22a05fde07ba1f885cde27b851649a2
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/cc99d26b12431e4e4d0e346ec32764eb42c0aed9
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/41e94079200aaf0cdbe4594b0af75710b33da124
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/2e2f130951d34871b0643bf700164d97cff4b427
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/f8495d67434e1cb7e511297687ca55fdb28e4c20
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/81dd117c04422c6d0c7974aba9fa6a0ba370959b
- git.kernel.org /stable/c/1853f30cf5c84971f99788a76207c6f745380896
Sources
- CVE List CVE-2026-97959
- NVD CVE-2026-97959
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