CVE-2026-53238 PUBLISHED

netlabel: validate unlabeled address and mask attribute lengths

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

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

netlabel: validate unlabeled address and mask attribute lengths

netlbl_unlabel_addrinfo_get() used the address attribute length to determine whether the attribute data could be read as an IPv4 or IPv6 address, but did not independently validate the corresponding mask attribute length. A crafted Generic Netlink request could therefore provide a valid IPv4/IPv6 address attribute with a shorter mask attribute, which would later be read as a full struct in_addr or struct in6_addr.

NLA_BINARY policy lengths are maximum lengths by default, so use NLA_POLICY_EXACT_LEN() for the unlabeled IPv4/IPv6 address and mask attributes. This rejects short attributes during policy validation and also exposes the exact length requirements through policy introspection.

Product Status

Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 8cc44579d1bd77ba3a32f2cb76fd9669c229c5fd to 975a84fd741440853380d37465b6e226cf47254c (excl.)
  • affected from 8cc44579d1bd77ba3a32f2cb76fd9669c229c5fd to 672f0f3b8f875ffe6525a37847eafa7648c4c0c6 (excl.)
  • affected from 8cc44579d1bd77ba3a32f2cb76fd9669c229c5fd to 95bda3eac0b1454c2cee98d58d9ba6dd8391e843 (excl.)
  • affected from 8cc44579d1bd77ba3a32f2cb76fd9669c229c5fd to 07a18f5c90dd3d586b73242f5a5bbf0a72f2fdc6 (excl.)
  • affected from 8cc44579d1bd77ba3a32f2cb76fd9669c229c5fd to 71c52da13c3737493b42d20d9f33de34e03b3156 (excl.)
  • affected from 8cc44579d1bd77ba3a32f2cb76fd9669c229c5fd to 0c4bb32ad7fdc2dc6a8050f41eb04d4bda56b6c8 (excl.)
  • affected from 8cc44579d1bd77ba3a32f2cb76fd9669c229c5fd to ccfe292a966079c61ea68a2da303b2a336170993 (excl.)
  • affected from 8cc44579d1bd77ba3a32f2cb76fd9669c229c5fd to 9772589b57e44aedc240211c5c3f7a684a034d3a (excl.)
Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: affected
  • Version 2.6.25 is affected
  • unaffected from 0 to 2.6.25 (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