CVE-2026-98631
Description
A flaw was found in the Linux kernel. A local attacker can cause a Denial of Service (DoS) or potentially expose sensitive memory by triggering an out-of-bounds read in the Berkeley Packet Filter (BPF) socket map implementation. This issue occurs because socket map lookups perform a 64-bit comparison on 32-bit keys, allowing out-of-range index values to bypass bounds checking when maps are configured with large entry limits.
Statement
This flaw is rated as Moderate impact because successful exploitation requires elevated privileges, such as CAP_BPF or CAP_NET_ADMIN, to create and manipulate AF_XDP socket maps. In typical Red Hat Enterprise Linux environments, unprivileged users cannot define these specialized networking maps with the exceptionally high entry counts needed to trigger the flaw. Therefore, the blast radius is restricted to local privileged accounts where an abnormal bounds evaluation during lookups can result in a kernel crash and denial of service.
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 | 4.4 | N/A | N/A |
| Attack Vector | Local | N/A | N/A |
| Attack Complexity | Low | N/A | N/A |
| Privileges Required | High | N/A | N/A |
| User Interaction | None | N/A | N/A |
| Scope | Unchanged | N/A | N/A |
| Confidentiality | None | N/A | N/A |
| Integrity Impact | None | N/A | N/A |
| Availability Impact | High | N/A | N/A |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
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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