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Advisory severityMediumRed Hat Linux

Medium [CVE-2026-64459] restore RCU grace period in tcp_ao_destroy_sock

This medium-severity Red Hat Linux advisory covers CVE-2026-64459.

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

CVE-2026-64459 Source published Source updated

VulniPulse record published Record updated

CVE-2026-64459
Affected products & platforms
Red Hat LinuxUnclassified
Open source advisory

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Summary

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: tcp: restore RCU grace period in tcp_ao_destroy_sock Commit 51e547e8c89c ("tcp: Free TCP-AO/TCP-MD5 info/keys without RCU") removed the call_rcu() callback from tcp_ao_destroy_sock(), arguing that "the destruction of info/keys is delayed until the socket destructor" and therefore "no one can discover it anymore".

That argument does not hold for the call site in tcp_connect() (net/ipv4/tcp_output.c:4327-4332).

At that point the socket is in TCP_SYN_SENT, has already been inserted into the inet ehash by inet_hash_connect() in tcp_v4_connect(), and is therefore very much discoverable: any softirq running tcp_v4_rcv() on another CPU can take the socket out of the ehash, walk into tcp_inbound_hash(), and load tp->ao_info via implicit RCU before bh_lock_sock_nested() is taken on the destroying CPU.

The reader path then enters __tcp_ao_do_lookup() (net/ipv4/tcp_ao.c:208) which re-loads tp->ao_info via rcu_dereference_check(); the re-load can still observe the (about-to-be-freed) pointer because there is no synchronize_rcu() between rcu_assign_pointer(tp->ao_info, NULL) and tcp_ao_info_free() in tcp_ao_destroy_sock().

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 3 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 3 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 3 days ago·verify at source

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