CVE-2026-43284 PUBLISHED

xfrm: esp: avoid in-place decrypt on shared skb frags

Assigner: Linux
Reserved: 01.05.2026 Published: 08.05.2026 Updated: 08.05.2026

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

xfrm: esp: avoid in-place decrypt on shared skb frags

MSG_SPLICE_PAGES can attach pages from a pipe directly to an skb. TCP marks such skbs with SKBFL_SHARED_FRAG after skb_splice_from_iter(), so later paths that may modify packet data can first make a private copy. The IPv4/IPv6 datagram append paths did not set this flag when splicing pages into UDP skbs.

That leaves an ESP-in-UDP packet made from shared pipe pages looking like an ordinary uncloned nonlinear skb. ESP input then takes the no-COW fast path for uncloned skbs without a frag_list and decrypts in place over data that is not owned privately by the skb.

Mark IPv4/IPv6 datagram splice frags with SKBFL_SHARED_FRAG, matching TCP. Also make ESP input fall back to skb_cow_data() when the flag is present, so ESP does not decrypt externally backed frags in place. Private nonlinear skb frags still use the existing fast path.

This intentionally does not change ESP output. In esp_output_head(), the path that appends the ESP trailer to existing skb tailroom without calling skb_cow_data() is not reachable for nonlinear skbs: skb_tailroom() returns zero when skb->data_len is nonzero, while ESP tailen is positive. Thus ESP output will either use the separate destination-frag path or fall back to skb_cow_data().

Product Status

Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 7da0dde68486b2d5bd7c689a9b327b77efecdfd0 to 50ed1e7873100f77abad20fd31c51029bc49cd03 (excl.)
  • affected from 7da0dde68486b2d5bd7c689a9b327b77efecdfd0 to b54edf1e9a3fd3491bdcb82a21f8d21315271e0d (excl.)
  • affected from 7da0dde68486b2d5bd7c689a9b327b77efecdfd0 to 71a1d9d985d26716f74d21f18ee8cac821b06e97 (excl.)
  • affected from 7da0dde68486b2d5bd7c689a9b327b77efecdfd0 to 52646cbd00e765a6db9c3afe9535f26218276034 (excl.)
Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: affected
  • Version 6.5 is affected
  • unaffected from 0 to 6.5 (excl.)
  • unaffected from 6.6.138 to 6.6.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.12.87 to 6.12.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.18.28 to 6.18.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.0.5 to 7.0.* (incl.)

References