SOC status:Duty analyst on shift

UK Cyber Defence
VulnerabilityAnalyzed

CVE-2026-52981

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.

HIGH 7.5EPSS 0.53%

Does this matter?

High impact if exploited, but EPSS currently rates exploitation as unlikely (0.53%). Schedule it in the normal patch cycle and watch for a rise in EPSS or a public exploit.

Description

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.

CVSS 3.1
7.5 HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS
0.53% probability · 43th percentile
CISA KEV
Not listed
Weakness
CWE-401
Affected
linux/linux kernel
Source
416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA. Refreshed daily.