Linux Kernel up to 7.1.5/7.2-rc4 Netlink Drop Monitor information disclosure

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability described as problematic has been identified in Linux Kernel up to 7.1.5/7.2-rc4. Affected is the function net_dm_packet_report_fill/net_dm_hw_packet_report_fill of the component Netlink Drop Monitor. The manipulation results in information disclosure. This vulnerability is reported as CVE-2026-68288. The attack can be launched remotely. No exploit exists.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Linux Kernel up to 7.1.5/7.2-rc4. It has been classified as problematic. Affected is the function net_dm_packet_report_fill/net_dm_hw_packet_report_fill of the component Netlink Drop Monitor. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a information disclosure vulnerability. CWE is classifying the issue as CWE-200. The product exposes sensitive information to an actor that is not explicitly authorized to have access to that information. This is going to have an impact on confidentiality. CVE summarizes:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: drop_monitor: fix info leak in NET_DM_ATTR_PAYLOAD net_dm_packet_report_fill() and net_dm_hw_packet_report_fill() open code the NET_DM_ATTR_PAYLOAD attribute to avoid zeroing the packet payload before overwriting it with skb_copy_bits(). skb_put() reserves nla_total_size(payload_len), i.e. the header plus the NLA_ALIGN() padding, but only payload_len bytes are copied in. When payload_len is not a multiple of 4 the 1-3 padding bytes are never initialized and are leaked to user space inside the netlink message. KMSAN confirms the leak for the software path when the packet payload length is not 4-byte aligned: BUG: KMSAN: kernel-infoleak in _copy_to_iter _copy_to_iter __skb_datagram_iter skb_copy_datagram_iter netlink_recvmsg sock_recvmsg __sys_recvfrom Uninit was created at: kmem_cache_alloc_node_noprof __alloc_skb net_dm_packet_work Bytes 173-175 of 176 are uninitialized Use __nla_reserve(), which sets up the attribute header and zeroes the padding, instead of open coding the attribute construction.

The advisory is shared for download at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability is traded as CVE-2026-68288 since 07/30/2026. The exploitability is told to be easy. It is possible to launch the attack remotely. The exploitation doesn't require any form of authentication. There are known technical details, but no exploit is available. The current price for an exploit might be approx. USD $0-$5k (estimation calculated on 08/10/2026). The MITRE ATT&CK project declares the attack technique as T1592.

Upgrading to version 7.1.6 or 7.2-rc5 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch 8fd6975d2aecc36b25ee82b6aef88e62a3527ccb/5e9c8baee0329fbefe7c67aea945e2a07f15e98b is able to eliminate this problem.

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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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