CVE-2026-53246 PUBLISHED

sctp: validate cached peer INIT chunk length in COOKIE_ECHO processing

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

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

sctp: validate cached peer INIT chunk length in COOKIE_ECHO processing

When a listening SCTP server processes a COOKIE_ECHO chunk, the cached peer INIT chunk embedded after the cookie is parsed and its parameters are later walked by sctp_process_init() using sctp_walk_params().

However, the chunk header length of this cached INIT chunk was not validated against the remaining buffer in the COOKIE_ECHO payload. If the length field is inflated, the parameter walk can run beyond the actual received data, leading to out-of-bounds reads and potential memory corruption during later parameter handling (e.g. STATE_COOKIE processing and kmemdup() copies).

Add a bounds check in sctp_unpack_cookie() to ensure the cached INIT chunk length does not exceed the available data in the COOKIE_ECHO buffer before it is used.

Product Status

Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 to cc272185c9a9a4b7febc2de52eeaa3d00f19091e (excl.)
  • affected from 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 to edccbf3d63b0a3362bc916ea72edacc1e1ca456a (excl.)
  • affected from 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 to 0861615c28de668669d748ef4eb913ea9262d13b (excl.)
Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: affected
  • Version 2.6.12 is affected
  • unaffected from 0 to 2.6.12 (excl.)
  • unaffected from 6.18.36 to 6.18.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.0.13 to 7.0.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.1 to * (incl.)

References