Access of Uninitialized Pointer Affecting kernel-rt-core package, versions *
Threat Intelligence
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Test your applications- Snyk IDSNYK-CENTOS10-KERNELRTCORE-18989092
- published20 Aug 2026
- disclosed15 Aug 2026
Introduced: 15 Aug 2026
NewCVE-2026-72444 (opens in a new tab)How to fix?
There is no fixed version for Centos:10 kernel-rt-core.
NVD Description
Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream kernel-rt-core package and not the kernel-rt-core package as distributed by Centos.
See How to fix? for Centos:10 relevant fixed versions and status.
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
flow_dissector: check device type before reading ETH_ADDRS
__skb_flow_dissect() unconditionally reads 12 bytes from eth_hdr(skb) when FLOW_DISSECTOR_KEY_ETH_ADDRS is requested. This assumes the skb has a valid Ethernet header at mac_header, which is not always the case.
The problem can be triggered by:
- Creating a TUN device in L3 mode (IFF_TUN, hard_header_len=0)
- Attaching a multiq qdisc with a flower filter matching on eth_src
- Sending a packet through AF_PACKET
Since TUN in L3 mode has no link-layer header, mac_header points to the L3 data area. The flow dissector reads 12 bytes of uninitialized skb memory, which then propagates through fl_set_masked_key() and is used as a rhashtable lookup key in __fl_lookup(), as reported by KMSAN.
Rejecting the filter in the control path (at tc filter add time) is not feasible because TC filter blocks can be shared between arbitrary devices -- a filter installed on an Ethernet device may later classify packets on a headerless device through a shared block. The device association is not fixed at filter creation time.
Fix this by gating the memcpy on dev->type == ARPHRD_ETHER, which ensures only true Ethernet-framed packets have their addresses read. This is more precise than the previous hard_header_len >= 12 check, which would incorrectly pass for non-Ethernet link types like IPoIB (ARPHRD_INFINIBAND, hard_header_len=24) and FDDI (hard_header_len=21) whose L2 headers are not in Ethernet format. Additionally check skb_mac_header_was_set() to guard against the pathological case where mac_header is the unset sentinel (~0U), which would cause eth_hdr() to return a wild pointer.
For the act_mirred redirect case (Ethernet packet redirected to a non-Ethernet device sharing a TC block), zeroing the key is the correct behavior: the packet is now being classified on the target device, where Ethernet address matching is not semantically meaningful.
Note: on non-Ethernet devices, the zeroed key will match a filter configured with all-zero MAC addresses. This is an improvement over the previous behavior where uninitialized memory could randomly match any filter.
References
- https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2516571
- https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-72444
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/0fe6455b8e1a22414f39c07bc90a1df12b52ec74
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/594c90b197141944f25991b8314de5c26ee27a7e
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/825de39f0c35a112148799b3cbe45af3766c018a
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/9a65860959db594dfc1820c7fdc09285fb7556bf
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/bf6e8af2c8be77489bedeae9f8a9654cb710e500
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/c6d3bcb0f934d4297ac5fa1c8656ae40694fb601