CVE-2026-98050
Description
A flaw was found in the Linux kernel. This vulnerability can lead to a Denial of Service (DoS) due to a race condition in the Mellanox switch (mlxsw) driver. When handling Precision Time Protocol (PTP) traffic, the garbage-collection workqueue and the network polling thread may concurrently modify shared packet lists across different processor cores. A remote attacker capable of inducing packet timestamp timeouts can trigger this flaw to corrupt kernel memory lists, resulting in a system crash.
Statement
This vulnerability is rated as having Moderate impact for Red Hat Enterprise Linux because exploitation requires specific Mellanox Spectrum hardware accelerators and precise timing conditions, resulting in an unrecoverable kernel panic rather than arbitrary code execution or privilege escalation. Systems lacking Mellanox Spectrum network switch hardware or not running Precision Time Protocol (PTP) services are not exposed. Triggering the race condition requires concurrently processing incoming PTP packets while packet timestamp timeout cleanups occur across multiple CPU cores, making reliable exploitation difficult.
Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details
Info alert:Important note
CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).
The following CVSS metrics and score provided are preliminary and subject to review.
CVSS v3 Score Breakdown
| Red Hat | NVD | cve.org | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Score | 7 | N/A | 7.5 |
| Attack Vector | Local | N/A | Adjacent Network |
| Attack Complexity | High | N/A | High |
| Privileges Required | Low | N/A | None |
| User Interaction | None | N/A | None |
| Scope | Unchanged | N/A | Unchanged |
| Confidentiality | High | N/A | High |
| Integrity Impact | High | N/A | High |
| Availability Impact | High | N/A | High |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
cve.org: CVSS:3.1/AV:A/AC:H/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
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