Medium [CVE-2026-6554] Denial of Service via infinite loop in BPF interpreter
This medium-severity Red Hat Linux advisory covers CVE-2026-6554 affecting Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.
Android app · Google Play
Monitor future Red Hat Linux CVEs from your phone.
Choose a whole vendor or a precise platform, then receive matching security advisories by phone notification, email, or both. Coverage follows 32 official vendor sources and 160+ reviewed platform categories.
Summary
libpcap BPF interpreter treats the offset in the 'ja L' BPF instruction as a signed integer to implement looping via backward jumps, but it does not limit the number of loop iterations. In particular uncommon use cases a crafted filter program can cause the interpreter to loop infinitely.
A flaw was found in libpcap. The Berkeley Packet Filter (BPF) interpreter incorrectly handles offsets in 'ja L' instructions, allowing backward jumps without limiting loop iterations.
A local attacker could provide a specially crafted filter program, leading to an infinite loop and causing a Denial of Service (DoS) condition. 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-835. 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; Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.
Red Hat does not currently list a fixing RHSA for this CVE.
Affected products named by the advisory: Red Hat package: libpcap.
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 2 hours 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 2 hours 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 2 hours ago·verify at source
Discussion(0)
No comments yet. Share field notes, upgrade gotchas, or questions — verify against the vendor advisory before acting on community advice.
Sign in to join the discussion.