CVE-2026-93105 PUBLISHED

esp: do not unref managed frag pages in esp_ssg_unref()

Assigner: Linux
Reserved: 17.09.2026 Published: 17.09.2026 Updated: 17.09.2026

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

esp: do not unref managed frag pages in esp_ssg_unref()

esp_ssg_unref() releases the page references held on the source scatterlist after the AEAD operation completes. It calls skb_page_unref() on every frag page for an out-of-place transform (req->src != req->dst), and in the error path of esp_output_tail() (already_unref == true) on the request's own scatterlist.

This is wrong when the skb carries managed frags (SKBFL_MANAGED_FRAG_REFS). Managed frags are owned by a zerocopy ubuf and the skb does not hold a per-frag page reference; io_uring SEND_ZC with a registered buffer attaches the bvec pages this way via io_sg_from_iter(). The rest of the stack honours this invariant: skb_release_data() skips the per-frag unref when SKBFL_MANAGED_FRAG_REFS is set, and skb_zcopy_managed() is the guard used at the other unref sites.

esp_ssg_unref() is missing that guard, so for a managed-frag skb it drops a page reference the skb never acquired. This can underflow the page reference count and free a page that is still in use.

Guard the function with skb_zcopy_managed() so both unref paths are skipped for managed-frag skbs, matching skb_release_data().

Product Status

Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from cac2661c53f35cbe651bef9b07026a5a05ab8ce0 to 26b6b14c7a0368e317a1e9fb5144ebe6f8d495cf (excl.)
  • affected from cac2661c53f35cbe651bef9b07026a5a05ab8ce0 to 21697720ff43b8dfa25b8e8d9ca7f56f4597fc80 (excl.)
Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: affected
  • Version 4.11 is affected
  • unaffected from 0 to 4.11 (excl.)
  • unaffected from 7.2.6 to 7.2.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.3-rc1 to * (incl.)

References