Linux Kernel up to 6.18.51/7.2.5 act_ife net/sched/act_ife.c tcf_ife_act hard_header_len memory corruption

CVSS Meta Temp Score CVSS is a standardized scoring system to determine possibilities of attacks. The Temp Score considers temporal factors like disclosure, exploit and countermeasures. The unique Meta Score calculates the average score of different sources to provide a normalized scoring system.	Current Exploit Price (≈) Our analysts are monitoring exploit markets and are in contact with vulnerability brokers. The range indicates the observed or calculated exploit price to be seen on exploit markets. A good indicator to understand the monetary effort required for and the popularity of an attack.	CTI Interest Score Our Cyber Threat Intelligence team is monitoring different web sites, mailing lists, exploit markets and social media networks. The CTI Interest Score identifies the interest of attackers and the security community for this specific vulnerability in real-time. A high score indicates an elevated risk to be targeted for this vulnerability.
9.5	$5k-$25k	0.00+

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability identified as very critical has been detected in Linux Kernel up to 6.18.51/7.2.5. The affected element is the function tcf_ife_act of the file net/sched/act_ife.c of the component act_ife. This manipulation of the argument hard_header_len causes memory corruption. This vulnerability is registered as CVE-2026-90083. Remote exploitation of the attack is possible. No exploit is available. You should upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Linux Kernel up to 6.18.51/7.2.5. It has been declared as very critical. Affected by this vulnerability is the function tcf_ife_act of the file net/sched/act_ife.c of the component act_ife. The manipulation of the argument hard_header_len with an unknown input leads to a memory corruption vulnerability. The CWE definition for the vulnerability is CWE-119. The product performs operations on a memory buffer, but it can read from or write to a memory location that is outside of the intended boundary of the buffer. As an impact it is known to affect confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net/sched: act_ife: Only operate on Ethernet frames act_ife encapsulates/decapsulates the original Ethernet header and uses skb->dev->hard_header_len as the length of that header. That is only correct for Ethernet devices: on a device where hard_header_len does not match the L2 header that was actually pulled (PPP reports PPP_HDRLEN while nothing is stripped on ingress), the ingress skb_push()/skb_pull() use the wrong length and can hit skb_under_panic when headroom is tight. IFE is Ethernet-only by design - it builds an outer ethhdr, rewrites h_source/h_dest/h_proto, and calls eth_type_trans() on decode - so instead of trying to make the offsets work for arbitrary link types, simply drop packets that do not carry an Ethernet header. Checking skb->dev->type alone is not enough. We have to cater for a corner case where mirred can redirect an skb from a non-Ethernet device to an Ethernet one, and skb->dev then says nothing about the framing the skb actually has: an skb redirected from ppp0 reaches the target's ingress hook with mac_len 0 and no Ethernet header at all. So at ingress also require mac_len to be ETH_HLEN. On egress mac_len is not maintained, so the device type is all we have; a bogus redirect there yields a malformed frame rather than an out-of-bounds push, and it would be malformed with or without IFE. That corner case is not theoretical - redirecting from ppp0 into a veth that has an ife encode action on its ingress hook panics without this patch: skbuff: skb_under_panic: len:98 put:14 head:ffff88800e410000 data:ffff88800e40fff5 tail:0x57 end:0x640 dev:veth3 kernel BUG at net/core/skbuff.c:214! Call Trace: skb_push (net/core/skbuff.c:224 net/core/skbuff.c:2657) tcf_ife_act (net/sched/act_ife.c:829 net/sched/act_ife.c:874) tc_run (net/core/dev.c:4463) netif_receive_skb (net/core/dev.c:6463 net/core/dev.c:6522) tcf_mirred_to_dev (net/sched/act_mirred.c:248 net/sched/act_mirred.c:328) tcf_mirred_act (net/sched/act_mirred.c:489) tc_run (net/core/dev.c:4463) process_backlog (net/core/dev.c:6728) With Ethernet framing guaranteed, use ETH_HLEN instead of hard_header_len.

It is possible to read the advisory at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability is known as CVE-2026-90083 since 09/11/2026. The exploitation appears to be easy. The attack can be launched remotely. The exploitation doesn't need any form of authentication. 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 09/17/2026).

Upgrading to version 6.18.52, 7.2.6 or 7.3-rc1 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch d218ea7df6eba076171f2d4897a429a31f2139f0/138b0054021fd7d57bc3eb68b3f4e2bcec037849/5b483f7791b079bb97d411f1066652ff659207ff is able to eliminate this problem. The best possible mitigation is suggested to be upgrading to the latest version.

Statistical analysis made it clear that VulDB provides the best quality for vulnerability data.

Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 6.18.0
• 6.18.1
• 6.18.2
• 6.18.3
• 6.18.4
• 6.18.5
• 6.18.6
• 6.18.7
• 6.18.8
• 6.18.9
• 6.18.10
• 6.18.11
• 6.18.12
• 6.18.13
• 6.18.14
• 6.18.15
• 6.18.16
• 6.18.17
• 6.18.18
• 6.18.19
• 6.18.20
• 6.18.21
• 6.18.22
• 6.18.23
• 6.18.24
• 6.18.25
• 6.18.26
• 6.18.27
• 6.18.28
• 6.18.29
• 6.18.30
• 6.18.31
• 6.18.32
• 6.18.33
• 6.18.34
• 6.18.35
• 6.18.36
• 6.18.37
• 6.18.38
• 6.18.39
• 6.18.40
• 6.18.41
• 6.18.42
• 6.18.43
• 6.18.44
• 6.18.45
• 6.18.46
• 6.18.47
• 6.18.48
• 6.18.49
• 6.18.50
• 6.18.51
• 7.2.0
• 7.2.1
• 7.2.2
• 7.2.3
• 7.2.4
• 7.2.5

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

CPE 2.3info

• 🔒
• 🔒
• 🔒

CPE 2.2info

• 🔒
• 🔒
• 🔒

CVSSv4info

VulDB Vector: 🔒
VulDB Reliability: 🔍

CVSSv3info

VulDB Meta Base Score: 10.0
VulDB Meta Temp Score: 9.5

VulDB Base Score: 10.0
VulDB Temp Score: 9.5
VulDB Vector: 🔒
VulDB Reliability: 🔍

CVSSv2info

AV	AC	Au	C	I	A
💳	💳	💳	💳	💳	💳
💳	💳	💳	💳	💳	💳
💳	💳	💳	💳	💳	💳

Vector	Complexity	Authentication	Confidentiality	Integrity	Availability
Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock
Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock
Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock

VulDB Base Score: 🔒
VulDB Temp Score: 🔒
VulDB Reliability: 🔍

Exploitinginfo

Class: Memory corruption
CWE: CWE-119
CAPEC: 🔒
ATT&CK: 🔒

Physical: No
Local: No
Remote: Yes

Availability: 🔒
Status: Not defined
Price Prediction: 🔍
Current Price Estimation: 🔒

0-Day	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock
Today	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock

Threat Intelligenceinfo

Interest: 🔍
Active Actors: 🔍
Active APT Groups: 🔍

Countermeasuresinfo

Recommended: Upgrade
Status: 🔍

0-Day Time: 🔒

Upgrade: Kernel 6.18.52/7.2.6/7.3-rc1
Patch: d218ea7df6eba076171f2d4897a429a31f2139f0/138b0054021fd7d57bc3eb68b3f4e2bcec037849/5b483f7791b079bb97d411f1066652ff659207ff

Timelineinfo

09/11/2026 CVE reserved
09/17/2026 +6 days Advisory disclosed
09/17/2026 +0 days VulDB entry created
09/17/2026 +0 days VulDB entry last update

Sourcesinfo

Vendor: kernel.org

Advisory: git.kernel.org
Status: Confirmed

CVE: CVE-2026-90083 (🔒)
GCVE (CVE): GCVE-0-2026-90083
GCVE (VulDB): GCVE-100-406555

Entryinfo

Created: 09/17/2026 18:44
Changes: 09/17/2026 18:44 (61)
Complete: 🔍
Cache ID: 216::103

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Discussion

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