CVE-2026-45843: Linux Kernel

High severity, CVSS 8.2. EPSS: 0.5% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: slip: bound decode() reads against the compressed packet length slhc_uncompress() parses a VJ-compressed TCP header by advancing a pointer through the packet via decode() and pull16(). Neither helper bounds-checks against isize, and decode() masks its return with & 0xffff so it can never return the -1 that callers test for -- those error paths are dead code. A short compressed frame whose change byte requests optional fields lets decode() read past the end of the packet. The over-read bytes are folded into the cached cstate and reflected into subsequent reconstructed packets. Make decode() and pull16() take the packet end pointer and return -1 when exhausted. Add a bounds check before the TCP-checksum read. The existing == -1 tests now do what they were always meant to.

Affected products

• Linux Linux Kernel: from 2.6.12.1, before 5.10.258 (fixed in 5.10.258); from 5.11, before 5.15.209 (fixed in 5.15.209); from 5.16, before 6.1.175 (fixed in 6.1.175); from 6.2, before 6.6.141 (fixed in 6.6.141); from 6.7, before 6.12.91 (fixed in 6.12.91); from 6.13, before 6.18.33 (fixed in 6.18.33); …

Published 2026-05-27. Last modified 2026-06-26.