High [CVE-2026-64009] Check for underflow in xfrm_state_mtu
This high-severity Red Hat Linux advisory covers CVE-2026-64009 affecting Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.
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Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: xfrm: Check for underflow in xfrm_state_mtu Leo Lin reported OOB write issue in esp component: xfrm_state_mtu() returns u32 but performs its arithmetic in unsigned modulo-2^32 space using an attacker-influenced "header_len + authsize + net_adj" subtracted from a small "mtu" argument.
A nobody user can install an IPv4 ESP tunnel SA with a large authentication key (XFRMA_ALG_AUTH_TRUNC, e.g. hmac(sha512), 64-byte key, 64-byte trunc), configure a small interface MTU (68 bytes), and set XFRMA_TFCPAD to a large value.
When a single UDP datagram is then sent through the tunnel, xfrm_state_mtu() underflows to a near-2^32 value, and esp_output() consumes it as a signed int via: padto = min(x->tfcpad, xfrm_state_mtu(x, mtu_cached)) esp.tfclen = padto - skb->len (assigned to int) esp.tfclen ends up negative (e.g. -207).
It is sign-extended to size_t when passed to memset() inside esp_output_fill_trailer(), producing a ~16 EB write of zeroes at skb_tail_pointer(skb). KASAN logs it as "Write of size 18446744073709551537 at addr ffff888...".
This causes the sendmsg attempt to fail with ENETUNREACH. A local, unprivileged user can trigger an integer underflow in the Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP) module's Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) calculation.
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 6 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 6 days ago·verify at source
Mitigation
The source record does not include mitigation steps. That is not a statement that no fix exists — read the vendor advisory below for the authoritative guidance.
Official advisory · medium-confidence parse· fetched 6 days ago·verify at source
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