CVE-2025-71097: Linux Kernel

Medium severity, CVSS 5.5. EPSS: 0.1% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ipv4: Fix reference count leak when using error routes with nexthop objects When a nexthop object is deleted, it is marked as dead and then fib_table_flush() is called to flush all the routes that are using the dead nexthop. The current logic in fib_table_flush() is to only flush error routes (e.g., blackhole) when it is called as part of network namespace dismantle (i.e., with flush_all=true). Therefore, error routes are not flushed when their nexthop object is deleted: # ip link add name dummy1 up type dummy # ip nexthop add id 1 dev dummy1 # ip route add 198.51.100.1/32 nhid 1 # ip route add blackhole 198.51.100.2/32 nhid 1 # ip nexthop del id 1 # ip route show blackhole 198.51.100.2 nhid 1 dev dummy1 As such, they keep holding a reference on the nexthop object which in turn holds a reference on the nexthop device, resulting in a reference count leak: # ip link del dev dummy1 [ 70.516258] unregister_netdevice: waiting for dummy1 to become free. Usage count = 2 Fix by flushing error routes when their nexthop is marked as dead. IPv6 does not suffer from this problem.

Affected products

• Linux Linux Kernel: from 5.3.1, before 5.10.248 (fixed in 5.10.248); from 5.11, before 5.15.198 (fixed in 5.15.198); from 5.16, before 6.1.160 (fixed in 6.1.160); from 6.2, before 6.6.120 (fixed in 6.6.120); from 6.7, before 6.12.64 (fixed in 6.12.64); from 6.13, before 6.18.4 (fixed in 6.18.4); …

Published 2026-01-13. Last modified 2026-07-14.