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Advisory severityMedium5.5Red Hat Linux

Medium [CVE-2026-53227] fix possible kfree_skb of ERR_PTR

This medium-severity Red Hat Linux advisory covers CVE-2026-53227 affecting Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.

Aggregated and source-linked by VulniPulse. Data sources, validation and limitations.

CVE-2026-53227 Source published Source updated

VulniPulse record published Record updated

CVE-2026-53227
Affected products & platforms
Red Hat LinuxLinux Kernel
Open source advisory

Summary

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: openvswitch: fix possible kfree_skb of ERR_PTR After the patch in the "Fixes" tag, the allocation of the "reply" skb can happen either before or after locking the ovs_mutex.

However, error cleanups still follow the classical reversed order, assuming "reply" is allocated before locking: it is freed after unlocking. If "reply" allocation happens after locking the mutex and it fails, "reply" is left with an ERR_PTR, and execution jumps to the correspondent cleanup stage which will try to free an invalid pointer.

Fix this by setting the pointer to NULL after having saved its error value. A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's Open vSwitch (OVS) component.

This issue occurs due to incorrect error handling during the allocation of a 'reply' skb (socket buffer) after locking the ovs_mutex. If the allocation fails, an invalid pointer may be passed to kfree_skb, leading to a system crash and resulting in a Denial of Service (DoS).

Red Hat severity: Moderate — CVSS 5.5 (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H). Weakness: CWE-763.

Affected Red Hat products: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9. Will not fix / out of support: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.

Is CVE-2026-53227 exploited?

No exploitation is reported in the sources VulniPulse tracks: CVE-2026-53227 is not in the CISA KEV catalog (checked ) and this advisory does not report exploitation. That is not proof the vulnerability cannot be exploited.

How do I fix CVE-2026-53227?

The advisory VulniPulse tracks names no fixed release. Follow Red Hat's guidance for workarounds and updates.

Confirm against the vendor advisory before you patch.

Affected versions

No affected-version range was extracted from the source record. The vendor advisory is authoritative. Check it before change work.

Official advisory · medium-confidence parse· fetched 15 days ago·verify at source

Fixed versions

No fixed release is recorded yet. That does not prove no patch exists. Confirm against the vendor advisory.

Official advisory · medium-confidence parse· fetched 15 days ago·verify at source

Mitigation

The source record does not include mitigation steps. That does not mean no fix exists. Read the vendor advisory below for the authoritative guidance.

Official advisory · medium-confidence parse· fetched 15 days ago·verify at source

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