Medium [CVE-2026-68137] Use-after-free in X.25 networking can lead to denial of service
This medium-severity Red Hat Linux advisory covers CVE-2026-68137.
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Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net/x25: fix use-after-free in x25_kill_by_neigh() x25_kill_by_neigh() walks the global X.25 socket list looking for sockets attached to a terminating neighbour. x25_list_lock protects list membership while the lookup is in progress, but it does not pin a socket's lifetime after the lock is dropped.
The function currently drops x25_list_lock before calling lock_sock(s). A concurrent close can run x25_release(), remove the same socket from x25_list, and drop the last socket reference in that window.
The neighbour teardown path can then lock or inspect a freed struct sock/struct x25_sock. Take sock_hold(s) while x25_list_lock still proves that the list entry is live, then drop the temporary reference after the socket has been locked, rechecked, and released.
Recheck x25_sk(s)->neighbour after lock_sock(), because another path may have disconnected the socket before this path acquired the socket lock. Restart the list walk after each disconnect because the list lock was dropped and the previous iterator state may no longer be valid.
A QEMU/KASAN run against origin/master reproduced a slab-use-after-free in x25_kill_by_neigh(). A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's X.25 networking component.
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
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