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Fencer Vulns
high 7.5

CVE-2026-52981 json

neigh: let neigh_xmit take skb ownership

published 2026-06-24 4 mo ago modified 2026-10-19 20 d ago also EUVD-2026-38849

cvss
7.5
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.5%
EPSS 0.5% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 45%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

neigh: let neigh_xmit take skb ownership

neigh_xmit always releases the skb, except when no neighbour table is found. But even the first added user of neigh_xmit (mpls) relied on neigh_xmit to release the skb (or queue it for tx).

sashiko reported: If neigh_xmit() is called with an uninitialized neighbor table (for example, NEIGH_ND_TABLE when IPv6 is disabled), it returns -EAFNOSUPPORT and bypasses its internal out_kfree_skb error path. Because the return value of neigh_xmit() is ignored here, does this leak the SKB?

Assume full ownership and remove the last code path that doesn't xmit or free skb.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.1.175, 6.6.141, 6.12.91, 6.18.33, 7.0.10, 7.1
  • linux Debian 12 6.1.176-1
  • linux Debian 13 6.12.94-1
  • linux Debian 14 7.0.10-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-52981

  • linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-136.136
  • linux Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-28.28
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1061.64
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1009.9
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1064.72
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1008.8
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1059.67
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 26.04 LTS 7.0.0-1003.4

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2026-52981

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 Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-51.1
  • kernel-default Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-51.1
  • kernel-kvmsmall Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-51.1
  • kernel-rt Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-51.1
  • kernel-source-rt Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-51.1
  • kernel-default SLES 16.0, SLE High Availability Extension 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2 +1 more 6.12.0-160000.37.1
  • kernel-rt Linux Micro 6.2 6.12.0-160000.37.1
  • kernel-64kb SLES 16.0, Linux Micro 6.2, SLES for SAP applications 16.0 6.12.0-160000.37.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2026:23244-1SUSE-SU-2026:23241-1SUSE-SU-2026:23194-1SUSE-SU-2026:23193-1SUSE-SU-2026:3594-1SUSE-SU-2026:23237-1

  • kernel-rt openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.37.1
  • dtb-aarch64 openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.37.1
  • kernel-64kb openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.37.1
  • kernel-syms openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.37.1
  • kernel-azure openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.37.1
  • kernel-obs-qa openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.37.1
  • kernel-source openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.37.1
  • kernel-default openSUSE Leap 16.0 6.12.0-160000.37.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:21555-1

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-2026-52981 updated cvss 5.5

kernel: neigh: let neigh_xmit take skb ownership

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • 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: no fix available “Fix deferred”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more
    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

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
yes
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
24 d ago

Exploit prediction

0.53% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 45% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 7.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-401 Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime
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.