CVE-2026-53212 PUBLISHED

netfilter: nft_tunnel: fix use-after-free on object destroy

Assigner: Linux
Reserved: 09.06.2026 Published: 25.06.2026 Updated: 25.06.2026

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

netfilter: nft_tunnel: fix use-after-free on object destroy

nft_tunnel_obj_destroy() calls metadata_dst_free() which directly kfree()s the metadata_dst, ignoring the dst_entry refcount. Packets that took a reference via dst_hold() in nft_tunnel_obj_eval() and are still queued (e.g. in a netem qdisc) are left with a dangling pointer. When these packets are eventually dequeued, dst_release() operates on freed memory.

Replace metadata_dst_free() with dst_release() so the metadata_dst is freed only after all references are dropped. The dst subsystem already handles metadata_dst cleanup in dst_destroy() when DST_METADATA is set.

Product Status

Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from af308b94a2a4a5a27bec9028354c4df444a7c8ba to 349df61526d2e39decc685d246202e3e284cfe05 (excl.)
  • affected from af308b94a2a4a5a27bec9028354c4df444a7c8ba to 55b79b1ae42372012413ce0413181d26679b17ef (excl.)
  • affected from af308b94a2a4a5a27bec9028354c4df444a7c8ba to 5e9ee18b27fde88cb6148202b33916c66693fe82 (excl.)
  • affected from af308b94a2a4a5a27bec9028354c4df444a7c8ba to 8767fe4079affa74314d7eb3220e700150289842 (excl.)
  • affected from af308b94a2a4a5a27bec9028354c4df444a7c8ba to fda6573a46ad24f35348e024905ee5bdf729797e (excl.)
  • affected from af308b94a2a4a5a27bec9028354c4df444a7c8ba to 941d7394efda5e054e2d6f3e0dd0f6a9ba19aaa3 (excl.)
  • affected from af308b94a2a4a5a27bec9028354c4df444a7c8ba to f9a0e4b61054cde89a2a77845293c726cc07cc43 (excl.)
  • affected from af308b94a2a4a5a27bec9028354c4df444a7c8ba to c32b26aaa2f9216520a38b3f4bfeec846eb3eb8a (excl.)
Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: affected
  • Version 4.19 is affected
  • unaffected from 0 to 4.19 (excl.)
  • unaffected from 5.10.259 to 5.10.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 5.15.210 to 5.15.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.1.176 to 6.1.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.6.143 to 6.6.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.12.94 to 6.12.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.18.36 to 6.18.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.0.13 to 7.0.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.1 to * (incl.)

References