CVE-2026-74587: Linux

Critical severity, CVSS 9.8. EPSS: 0.5% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: sctp: fix use-after-free of cached ASCONF chunk addip_last_asconf caches the outstanding outbound ASCONF chunk. The normal ASCONF-ACK completion path releases the chunk and clears the pointer. However, sctp_asconf_queue_teardown() releases the cached chunk without clearing addip_last_asconf. During peer restart handling, sctp_sf_do_dupcook_a() queues SCTP_CMD_PURGE_ASCONF_QUEUE, which invokes sctp_asconf_queue_teardown() while the association remains alive and leaves the pointer dangling. A delayed authenticated ASCONF-ACK can then reach sctp_sf_do_asconf_ack(), which accesses the stale chunk and passes it to sctp_process_asconf_ack(), causing a use-after-free and a second release. Clearing the pointer exposes a race with T4 expiry. Peer restart handling queues the timer stop before the purge, but SCTP_CMD_TIMER_STOP uses timer_delete(), which does not wait for a callback already running on another CPU. Such a callback can reach sctp_sf_t4_timer_expire() after the purge and dereference NULL. Clear addip_last_asconf after releasing the cached chunk, and make sctp_sf_t4_timer_expire() consume a stale T4 expiry if no outstanding ASCONF remains.

Affected products

• Linux Linux: from 3.0, before 5.10.265 (fixed in 5.10.265); from 5.11, before 5.15.216 (fixed in 5.15.216); from 5.16, before 6.1.183 (fixed in 6.1.183); from 6.2, before 6.6.152 (fixed in 6.6.152); from 6.7, before 6.12.104 (fixed in 6.12.104); from 6.13, before 6.18.45 (fixed in 6.18.45); …

Published 2026-08-22. Last modified 2026-08-25.