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Fencer Vulns
medium 5.5

CVE-2026-23125 json

sctp: move SCTP_CMD_ASSOC_SHKEY right after SCTP_CMD_PEER_INIT

published 2026-02-14 8 mo ago modified 2026-10-19 20 d ago also EUVD-2026-5911

cvss
5.5
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.1%
EPSS 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 2%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

sctp: move SCTP_CMD_ASSOC_SHKEY right after SCTP_CMD_PEER_INIT

A null-ptr-deref was reported in the SCTP transmit path when SCTP-AUTH key initialization fails:

================================================================== KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000018-0x000000000000001f] CPU: 0 PID: 16 Comm: ksoftirqd/0 Tainted: G W 6.6.0 #2 RIP: 0010:sctp_packet_bundle_auth net/sctp/output.c:264 [inline] RIP: 0010:sctp_packet_append_chunk+0xb36/0x1260 net/sctp/output.c:401 Call Trace:

sctp_packet_transmit_chunk+0x31/0x250 net/sctp/output.c:189 sctp_outq_flush_data+0xa29/0x26d0 net/sctp/outqueue.c:1111 sctp_outq_flush+0xc80/0x1240 net/sctp/outqueue.c:1217 sctp_cmd_interpreter.isra.0+0x19a5/0x62c0 net/sctp/sm_sideeffect.c:1787 sctp_side_effects net/sctp/sm_sideeffect.c:1198 [inline] sctp_do_sm+0x1a3/0x670 net/sctp/sm_sideeffect.c:1169 sctp_assoc_bh_rcv+0x33e/0x640 net/sctp/associola.c:1052 sctp_inq_push+0x1dd/0x280 net/sctp/inqueue.c:88 sctp_rcv+0x11ae/0x3100 net/sctp/input.c:243 sctp6_rcv+0x3d/0x60 net/sctp/ipv6.c:1127

The issue is triggered when sctp_auth_asoc_init_active_key() fails in sctp_sf_do_5_1C_ack() while processing an INIT_ACK. In this case, the command sequence is currently:

- SCTP_CMD_PEER_INIT - SCTP_CMD_TIMER_STOP (T1_INIT) - SCTP_CMD_TIMER_START (T1_COOKIE) - SCTP_CMD_NEW_STATE (COOKIE_ECHOED) - SCTP_CMD_ASSOC_SHKEY - SCTP_CMD_GEN_COOKIE_ECHO

If SCTP_CMD_ASSOC_SHKEY fails, asoc->shkey remains NULL, while asoc->peer.auth_capable and asoc->peer.peer_chunks have already been set by SCTP_CMD_PEER_INIT. This allows a DATA chunk with auth = 1 and shkey = NULL to be queued by sctp_datamsg_from_user().

Since command interpretation stops on failure, no COOKIE_ECHO should been sent via SCTP_CMD_GEN_COOKIE_ECHO. However, the T1_COOKIE timer has already been started, and it may enqueue a COOKIE_ECHO into the outqueue later. As a result, the DATA chunk can be transmitted together with the COOKIE_ECHO in sctp_outq_flush_data(), leading to the observed issue.

Similar to the other places where it calls sctp_auth_asoc_init_active_key() right after sctp_process_init(), this patch moves the SCTP_CMD_ASSOC_SHKEY immediately after SCTP_CMD_PEER_INIT, before stopping T1_INIT and starting T1_COOKIE. This ensures that if shared key generation fails, authenticated DATA cannot be sent. It also allows the T1_INIT timer to retransmit INIT, giving the client another chance to process INIT_ACK and retry key setup.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 5.10.249, 5.15.199, 6.1.162, 6.6.122, 6.12.68, 6.18.8, 6.19
  • linux Debian 12 6.1.162-1
  • linux Debian 13 6.12.69-1
  • linux Debian 14 6.18.8-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-23125

  • linux Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-176.186
  • linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-117.117
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1105.112
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1055.58
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1105.114
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1058.61
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 22.04 LTS 5.15.0-1101.107
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1054.60

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2026-23125

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-rt Linux Micro 6.2 6.12.0-160000.28.1
  • kernel-64kb Linux Micro 6.2 6.12.0-160000.28.1
  • kernel-source Linux Micro 6.2 6.12.0-160000.28.1
  • kernel-default Linux Micro 6.2 6.12.0-160000.28.1
  • kernel-default-base Linux Micro 6.2 6.12.0-160000.27.1.160000.2.8
  • gdk-pixbuf Linux Micro 6.2 2.42.12-160000.4.1
  • kernel-syms Linux Micro Extras 6.2 6.12.0-160000.28.1
  • kernel-obs-build Linux Micro Extras 6.2 6.12.0-160000.28.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2026:21237-1SUSE-SU-2026:21230-1SUSE-SU-2026:21255-1SUSE-SU-2026:21123-1SUSE-SU-2026:21114-1SUSE-SU-2026:1081-1

  • kernel-rt openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.28.1
  • dtb-aarch64 openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.28.1
  • kernel-64kb openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.28.1
  • kernel-syms openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.28.1
  • kernel-azure openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.28.1
  • kernel-obs-qa openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.28.1
  • kernel-source openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.28.1
  • kernel-default openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.28.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:20572-1

  • kernel Azure Linux 3.0 6.6.126.1-1

azure linux advisories AZL-77751

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

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2026-23125 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: sctp: move SCTP_CMD_ASSOC_SHKEY right after SCTP_CMD_PEER_INIT

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more
    affected: workaround, no fix planned “To mitigate this issue, prevent the sctp module from being loaded. See https://access.redhat.com/solutions/41278 for instructions on how to blacklist kernel modules.”
  • 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 Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel
    affected: workaround, no fix available “To mitigate this issue, prevent the sctp module from being loaded. See https://access.redhat.com/solutions/41278 for instructions on how to blacklist kernel modules.”

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

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
4 mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.13% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 2% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
NVD 3.1 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Weakness
Technology feeds

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.