CVE-2026-45843 PUBLISHED

slip: bound decode() reads against the compressed packet length

Assigner: Linux
Reserved: 13.05.2026 Published: 27.05.2026 Updated: 27.05.2026

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

slip: bound decode() reads against the compressed packet length

slhc_uncompress() parses a VJ-compressed TCP header by advancing a pointer through the packet via decode() and pull16(). Neither helper bounds-checks against isize, and decode() masks its return with & 0xffff so it can never return the -1 that callers test for -- those error paths are dead code.

A short compressed frame whose change byte requests optional fields lets decode() read past the end of the packet. The over-read bytes are folded into the cached cstate and reflected into subsequent reconstructed packets.

Make decode() and pull16() take the packet end pointer and return -1 when exhausted. Add a bounds check before the TCP-checksum read. The existing == -1 tests now do what they were always meant to.

Product Status

Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 to 37537e42e6df387398bee85cb85070cc80bb1e10 (excl.)
  • affected from 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 to 4cefe32639933d652614b0bd50f818f9af4af78f (excl.)
  • affected from 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 to 0511ecb00e61bf28e2fec4bb41fcce385c3a3b2d (excl.)
  • affected from 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 to d42bec6e4f6d6d658be365539400b3314b76b2a7 (excl.)
  • affected from 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 to 4c1367a2d7aad643a6f87c6931b13cc1a25e8ca7 (excl.)
Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: affected
  • Version 2.6.12 is affected
  • unaffected from 0 to 2.6.12 (excl.)
  • unaffected from 6.6.141 to 6.6.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.12.91 to 6.12.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.18.33 to 6.18.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.0.10 to 7.0.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.1-rc1 to * (incl.)

References