CVE-2026-73261
Description
A flaw was found in Mongoose. This vulnerability allows an unauthenticated remote attacker to cause a Denial of Service (DoS) by sending network packets with malformed TCP options. Due to improper length validation in the built-in TCP/IP stack, these crafted packets corrupt connection settings, specifically the Maximum Segment Size (MSS). Consequently, the server transmits truncated or empty data payloads over affected connections, disrupting normal communications while the connection appears healthy.
Statement
Red Hat Product Security has rated this vulnerability as Important because an unauthenticated remote attacker can disrupt active network communications and induce a denial of service without requiring user interaction or specialized privileges. In standard enterprise Linux deployments, applications linking against Mongoose utilize the kernel's native network socket layer rather than the optional built-in networking stack required to trigger this flaw. Additionally, Mongoose is not distributed in supported Red Hat Enterprise Linux products.
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Confidentiality
Technical Impact: Read Memory
An attacker could get secret values such as cryptographic keys, PII, memory addresses, or other information that could be used in additional attacks.
Confidentiality
Technical Impact: Bypass Protection Mechanism
Out-of-bounds memory could contain memory addresses or other information that can be used to bypass ASLR and other protection mechanisms in order to improve the reliability of exploiting a separate weakness for code execution.
Availability
Technical Impact: DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart
An attacker could cause a segmentation fault or crash by causing memory to be read outside of the bounds of the buffer. This is especially likely when the code reads a variable amount of data and assumes that a sentinel exists to stop the read operation, such as a NUL in a string.
Other
Technical Impact: Varies by Context
The read operation could produce other undefined or unexpected results.
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