High [CVE-2026-98490] fix helper UAF due to extensions realloc
This high-severity Red Hat Linux advisory covers CVE-2026-98490; related products: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.
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Summary
fix helper UAF due to extensions realloc. Red Hat rates this important (CVSS 7.5).
Weakness: CWE-825.
Affected products named by the advisory: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9; and 2 more.
Affected products named by the advisory: Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4; Red Hat package: kernel-rt.
Affected versions
No affected-version range was extracted from the source record. The vendor advisory is authoritative — check it before change work.
Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 12 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 · high-confidence parse· fetched 12 hours ago·verify at source
Mitigation checklist
- --- CME Mitigation Guidance (2026-10-20) --- Disclaimer: The following mitigation solutions are provided as a courtesy, pending the application of an official patch. This content was generated utilizing AI tools in conjunction with data from https://cmetaxonomy.org. Customers are advised to independently evaluate and test these temporary mitigations within their own infrastructure. The highest-value action is to defer conntrack helper invocation in Open vSwitch until after all connection tracking extensions have been committed and allocated: upgrade to the fixed Kernel/Kernel Rt/Kernel Ivos Qualcomm/Openshift/Ose Rhel Coreos/Kpatch builds, which defer conntrack helper invocation until the end of ovs_ct_commit after all other extensions have been allocated, closing specially crafted network packets targeting conntrack helper flows. Until patched, this is only a concern on Linux systems running Open vSwitch with conntrack helpers and extensions enabled — Non-Linux operating systems are unaffected — so Restrict network traffic to Open vSwitch conntrack helper flows, or avoid combining helper processing with additional extension assignments on unconfirmed connections. As a compensating measure, enable runtime memory error detection such as KASAN or HWASan to detect use-after-free access and dangling pointer dereferences and enable SLAB freelist hardening including freelist randomization and integrity checks to impede exploitation of reallocated extension memory. These controls limit blast radius and contain exploitation, but they do not fix the underlying conntrack helper use-after-free defect — apply the upstream patch to fully remediate. Highest-impact CME: CME-1005 Runtime Memory Error Detection (KASAN/HWASan) (medium)
Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 12 hours ago·verify at source
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