CVE-2026-52981: Linux Kernel

High severity, CVSS 7.5. EPSS: 0.5% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: neigh: let neigh_xmit take skb ownership neigh_xmit always releases the skb, except when no neighbour table is found. But even the first added user of neigh_xmit (mpls) relied on neigh_xmit to release the skb (or queue it for tx). sashiko reported: If neigh_xmit() is called with an uninitialized neighbor table (for example, NEIGH_ND_TABLE when IPv6 is disabled), it returns -EAFNOSUPPORT and bypasses its internal out_kfree_skb error path. Because the return value of neigh_xmit() is ignored here, does this leak the SKB? Assume full ownership and remove the last code path that doesn't xmit or free skb.

Affected products

• Linux Linux Kernel: from 4.1, 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); from 6.19, before 7.0.10 (fixed in 7.0.10); version 7.1 only

Published 2026-06-24. Last modified 2026-07-14.