ovpn: tcp - don't deref NULL sk_socket member after tcp_close()

published 2026-05-27 5 mo ago modified 2026-06-24 4 mo ago also EUVD-2026-32384

cvss: 5.5; version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev: Not listed; not in CISA's catalog
epss: 0.2%; EPSS 0.2% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 5%
public exploits: 0; none known

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

When deleting a peer in case of keepalive expiration, the peer is removed from the OpenVPN hashtable and is temporary inserted in a "release list" for further processing.

This happens in: ovpn_peer_keepalive_work() unlock_ovpn(release_list)

This processing includes detaching from the socket being used to talk to this peer, by restoring its original proto and socket ops/callbacks.

In case of TCP it may happen that, while the peer is sitting in the release list, userspace decides to close the socket. This will result in a concurrent execution of:

tcp_close(sk) __tcp_close(sk) sock_orphan(sk) sk_set_socket(sk, NULL)

The last function call will set sk->sk_socket to NULL.

When the releasing routine is resumed, ovpn_tcp_socket_detach() will attempt to dereference sk->sk_socket to restore its original ops member. This operation will crash due to sk->sk_socket being NULL.

Fix this race condition by testing-and-accessing sk->sk_socket atomically under sk->sk_callback_lock.

Patch / fix

fixed in 1 distros 1 links 3

Linux Linux 6.18.14, 6.19.4, 7.0

linux Debian 14 6.18.14-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-45918

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-2026-45918 updated 2026-11-06

kernel: ovpn: tcp - don't deref NULL sk_socket member after tcp_close()

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more 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
not 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

0.16% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 5% 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

CWE-476 NULL Pointer Dereference

Technology feeds

Linux kernel rss critical rss

References

Sources

CVE List CVE-2026-45918
NVD CVE-2026-45918

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.

Summary