Linux Kernel up to 7.2.10 IPv6 UDP Exception Cache ip6_update_pmtu/ip6_redirect information disclosure

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability labeled as problematic has been found in Linux Kernel up to 7.2.10. Impacted is the function ip6_update_pmtu/ip6_redirect of the component IPv6 UDP Exception Cache. Executing a manipulation can lead to information disclosure. This vulnerability appears as CVE-2026-99076. The attack may be performed from remote. There is no available exploit. The affected component should be upgraded.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability has been found in Linux Kernel up to 7.2.10 and classified as problematic. This vulnerability affects the function ip6_update_pmtu/ip6_redirect of the component IPv6 UDP Exception Cache. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a information disclosure vulnerability. The CWE definition for the vulnerability is CWE-200. The product exposes sensitive information to an actor that is not explicitly authorized to have access to that information. As an impact it is known to affect confidentiality. CVE summarizes:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ipv6: udp: Create exceptions before socket matching Currently, when ICMPv6 Packet Too Big and Redirect Message packets are locally delivered and quote a UDP packet, an exception is only created in the IPv6 exception cache if the kernel can match the UDP packet to an existing socket. This behavior allows off-path attackers to conduct a side-channel attack on the exception cache in order to discover the ephemeral port used by a connected UDP socket. Commit 4785305c05b2 ("ipv6: use siphash in rt6_exception_hash()") and commit a00df2caffed ("ipv6: make exception cache less predictible") tried to mitigate such attacks by making it harder for attackers to discover hash collisions in the exception cache and by randomizing the number of exceptions a hash bucket can hold, respectively. Unfortunately, both of the mitigations can be bypassed. Instead, mitigate such attacks by always creating an exception, even before trying to find a matching socket. Do that by calling ip6_update_pmtu() and ip6_redirect(), the helpers used when the quoted packet did not originate from a socket. This means that guesses (right or wrong) from an off-path attacker will always result in an exception being created or updated in the cache that the attacker can observe. Pass the ifindex of the ingress device and the default uid, in a similar fashion to icmpv6_err(). Unlike IPv4, an oif of 0 would not match any nexthop in ip6_redirect_nh_match() and no exception would be created in response to a Redirect Message. Note that this does not allow attackers to create exceptions that they could not create before, as both helpers can already be reached with little to no validation. For example, by sending an ICMPv6 error that quotes an ICMPv6 Echo Reply or one that quotes a UDP source port that matches a wildcard socket. Also note that in the good case (matched socket) the above scheme comes at the cost of an extra route lookup, as the no socket helpers perform their own lookup before the one performed by ip6_sk_update_pmtu() / ip6_sk_redirect(). When the two resolve to different nexthops, it also results in two exceptions being created for the same destination IP. One in the exception cache of the nexthop resolved by the no socket helpers and another in the exception cache of the nexthop used by the socket.

The advisory is shared for download at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability was named CVE-2026-99076 since 09/25/2026. The exploitation appears to be easy. The attack can be initiated remotely. No form of authentication is required for a successful exploitation. 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 10/23/2026). The MITRE ATT&CK project declares the attack technique as T1592.

Upgrading to version 7.2.11 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch 8c9b310c958be33ba8fb9d0e6b77811d013e10c0/ac76cab50e899a7346408b8d3c3a4192c2eefb9f 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

• 7.2.0
• 7.2.1
• 7.2.2
• 7.2.3
• 7.2.4
• 7.2.5
• 7.2.6
• 7.2.7
• 7.2.8
• 7.2.9
• 7.2.10

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

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