Linux Kernel up to 7.1.5/7.2-rc4 drop_monitor buffer overflow

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability marked as critical has been reported in Linux Kernel up to 7.1.5/7.2-rc4. This impacts the function net_dm_packet_report_fill/net_dm_hw_packet_report_fill of the component drop_monitor. The manipulation leads to buffer overflow. This vulnerability is documented as CVE-2026-68287. The attack can be initiated remotely. There is not any exploit available. It is suggested to upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Linux Kernel up to 7.1.5/7.2-rc4 and classified as critical. This issue affects the function net_dm_packet_report_fill/net_dm_hw_packet_report_fill of the component drop_monitor. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a buffer overflow vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to CWE-120. The product copies an input buffer to an output buffer without verifying that the size of the input buffer is less than the size of the output buffer, leading to a buffer overflow. Impacted is availability. The summary by CVE is:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: drop_monitor: fix size calculations for 64-bit attributes net_dm_packet_report_fill() and net_dm_hw_packet_report_fill() use nla_put_u64_64bit() to append 64-bit attributes (NET_DM_ATTR_PC and NET_DM_ATTR_TIMESTAMP). On 32-bit architectures without CONFIG_HAVE_EFFICIENT_UNALIGNED_ACCESS, nla_put_u64_64bit() may append a 4-byte NET_DM_ATTR_PAD attribute for 64-bit alignment. However, net_dm_packet_report_size() and net_dm_hw_packet_report_size() used nla_total_size(sizeof(u64)) instead of nla_total_size_64bit(sizeof(u64)), budgeting 12 bytes instead of up to 16 bytes. This under-estimation of SKB size can lead to an skb_over_panic() when __nla_reserve() or skb_put() is subsequently called. Fix this by using nla_total_size_64bit(sizeof(u64)) in both size calculations.

It is possible to read the advisory at git.kernel.org. The identification of this vulnerability is CVE-2026-68287 since 07/30/2026. The exploitation is known to be easy. The attack may be initiated remotely. No form of authentication is needed for a successful exploitation. Technical details of the vulnerability are known, but there is no available exploit. The pricing for an exploit might be around USD $5k-$25k at the moment (estimation calculated on 09/21/2026).

Upgrading to version 7.1.6 or 7.2-rc5 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch 4a9e30764e80693bcf875c776170edce20f94fe0/7089f7ab99c89f443c92d8fcc585e63f2727f0b3 is able to eliminate this problem. The best possible mitigation is suggested to be upgrading to the latest version.

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Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 7.1.0
• 7.1.1
• 7.1.2
• 7.1.3
• 7.1.4
• 7.1.5
• 7.2-rc1
• 7.2-rc2
• 7.2-rc3
• 7.2-rc4

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

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