CVE-2026-74268: Linux

Critical severity, CVSS 9.8. EPSS: 0.7% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: tcp: clear sock_ops cb flags before force-closing a child socket A child socket inherits the listener's bpf_sock_ops_cb_flags via sk_clone_lock(). If its setup fails in tcp_v4_syn_recv_sock() / tcp_v6_syn_recv_sock(), the child is freed through put_and_exit, where inet_csk_prepare_forced_close() drops the socket lock and tcp_done() runs without it. If BPF_SOCK_OPS_STATE_CB_FLAG was inherited, tcp_done() -> tcp_set_state() calls tcp_call_bpf(), which expects the lock and trips sock_owned_by_me(): WARNING: include/net/sock.h:1799 at tcp_set_state+0x433/0x550 RIP: 0010:tcp_set_state+0x433/0x550 include/net/sock.h:1799 Call Trace: <IRQ> tcp_done+0xba/0x250 net/ipv4/tcp.c:5095 tcp_v4_syn_recv_sock+0x850/0xa50 net/ipv4/tcp_ipv4.c:1787 tcp_check_req+0xf30/0x1360 net/ipv4/tcp_minisocks.c:926 tcp_v4_rcv+0x1047/0x1b50 net/ipv4/tcp_ipv4.c:2164 </IRQ> The child is freed before it is ever established, so it should run no sock_ops callback. Clear its cb flags in inet_csk_prepare_for_destroy_sock(), the common point for the IPv4, IPv6 and chtls forced-close paths and for the MPTCP ->syn_recv_sock() failure path (dispose_child), which reaches tcp_done() on a child that was never established too.

Affected products

• Linux Linux: from 4.16, before 5.10.270 (fixed in 5.10.270); from 5.11, before 5.15.221 (fixed in 5.15.221); from 5.16, before 6.1.188 (fixed in 6.1.188); from 6.2, before 6.6.157 (fixed in 6.6.157); from 6.7, before 6.12.110 (fixed in 6.12.110); from 6.13, before 6.18.40 (fixed in 6.18.40); …

Published 2026-08-15. Last modified 2026-09-14.