SOC status:Duty analyst on shift

UK Cyber Defence
VulnerabilityAnalyzed

CVE-2026-53246

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: sctp: validate cached peer INIT chunk length in COOKIE_ECHO processing When a listening SCTP server processes a COOKIE_ECHO chunk, the cached peer INIT chunk embedded after the cookie…

CRITICAL 9.8EPSS 0.44%

Does this matter?

High impact if exploited, but EPSS currently rates exploitation as unlikely (0.44%). 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: sctp: validate cached peer INIT chunk length in COOKIE_ECHO processing When a listening SCTP server processes a COOKIE_ECHO chunk, the cached peer INIT chunk embedded after the cookie is parsed and its parameters are later walked by sctp_process_init() using sctp_walk_params(). However, the chunk header length of this cached INIT chunk was not validated against the remaining buffer in the COOKIE_ECHO payload. If the length field is inflated, the parameter walk can run beyond the actual received data, leading to out-of-bounds reads and potential memory corruption during later parameter handling (e.g. STATE_COOKIE processing and kmemdup() copies). Add a bounds check in sctp_unpack_cookie() to ensure the cached INIT chunk length does not exceed the available data in the COOKIE_ECHO buffer before it is used.

CVSS 3.1
9.8 CRITICALCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS
0.44% probability · 37th percentile
CISA KEV
Not listed
Weakness
CWE-787
Affected
linux/linux kernel
Source
416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

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