HighCVE-2026-45840

    Linux Kernel: security vulnerability (CVE-2026-45840)

    Published Last modified Sources: Debian LTS, SUSE, Ubuntu, Siemens ProductCERT, Debian, BSI, CVE.org, Msrc Update Guide, EUVD

    What is affected, what to do

    In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: openvswitch: cap upcall PID array size and pre-size vport replies The vport netlink reply helpers allocate a fixed-size skb with nlmsg_new(NLMSG_DEFAULT_SIZE, ...) but serialize the full upcall PID array via ovs_vport_get_upcall_portids(). Since ovs_vport_set_upcall_portids() accepts any non-zero multiple of sizeof(u32) with no upper bound, a CAP_NET_ADMIN user can install a PID array large enough to overflow the reply buffer, causing nla_put() to fail with -EMSGSIZE and hitting BUG_ON(err < 0).

    Update Linux Kernel to version 5.10.258, Linux Kernel to version 5.15.209, Linux Kernel to version 6.1.175.

    Affected
    • Linux Kernel lt 3.17..5.10.258
    • Linux Kernel lt 5.11..5.15.209
    • Linux Kernel lt 5.16..6.1.175
    • Linux Kernel lt 6.2..6.6.141
    • Linux Kernel lt 6.7..6.12.91
    • Linux Kernel lt 6.13..6.18.33
    • Linux Kernel lt 6.19..7.0.10
    Fixed in
    • Linux Kernel 5.10.258
    • Linux Kernel 5.15.209
    • Linux Kernel 6.1.175
    • Linux Kernel 6.6.141
    • Linux Kernel 6.12.91
    • Linux Kernel 6.18.33
    • Linux Kernel 7.0.10
    • Linux Kernel 7.1

    Not sure whether and how you are affected? Ask a question about this vulnerability

    Metrics

    7.0

    Priority

    XIEM Effective CVSS: highest available CVSS rating from NVD and vendor data.

    Source: Vendor (CNA), CVSS v3

    5.5

    CVSS v3

    Severity Medium on the scale from 0 to 10.

    Source: Debian LTS, SUSE, Ubuntu, Siemens ProductCERT, Debian, BSI, CVE.org, Msrc Update Guide, EUVD

    0.1 %

    EPSS score

    Low — model estimates < 1% exploitation likelihood.

    Source: FIRST EPSS, percentile 2.8

    Show all metrics
    Severity
    High
    Priority (0–325)

    The priority score is a consolidated metric that condenses several individual signals into a single, action-guiding ranking: technical severity (CVSS), exploitation likelihood (EPSS), known-exploited status (KEV) and the context of the affected asset. The aim is to answer the only truly important question in vulnerability management: what first?

    Read in glossary
    45.57 Methodology
    Exploit maturity

    An exploit is code or a technique that specifically uses a concrete vulnerability to force unintended behaviour — such as executing code or escalating privileges. It is the tool that turns a theoretical flaw into a practical attack.

    Read in glossary
    no public PoC known
    XIEM Effective CVSS

    XIEM® is the tiered managed-security operating model from NEOSEC and a registered trademark of NEOSEC GmbH. It extends classic SIEM — the central collection, normalisation and correlation of security-relevant events — with endpoint forensics, network visibility and deception technology, and consolidates them into three building tiers: Sentry, Orchestrate and Command.

    Read in glossary
    7.0 Methodology
    CVSS v3

    CVSS is the globally established, open standard for assessing the technical severity of a vulnerability on a scale from 0 to 10. It describes how easily a flaw can be exploited and what damage it can cause — but not how likely its actual exploitation is. CVSS and the complementary EPSS deliberately answer different questions.

    Read in glossary
    5.5
    EPSS score

    The EPSS score is the absolute model output for an individual vulnerability: the estimated probability of real-world exploitation within the next 30 days, expressed as a value between 0 and 1 (i.e. 0 % to 100 %). A score of 0.42 means „the model estimates a 42 % chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days“.

    Read in glossary
    0.1 %
    Low — model estimates < 1% exploitation likelihood.
    EPSS percentile

    The EPSS percentile is the relative position of a vulnerability within all EPSS-scored CVEs, expressed as a value between 0 and 1. A percentile of 0.90 means „this CVE has a higher EPSS score than 90 % of all other scored CVEs“. Unlike the EPSS score, it is not a probability — but a positioning within a ranking.

    Read in glossary
    2.8
    Low — this CVE sits in the lower 10% of all CVEs scored today.
    KEV status

    The KEV catalogue is a list maintained by the US authority CISA of vulnerabilities for which active exploitation in the wild has been confirmed. It answers not the question „how severe?“ but „is it already being attacked?“ — thereby sharply prioritising patching.

    Read in glossary
    —
    Published

    Detection rules

    No NEOSEC detection rule is available for this vulnerability yet.

    Classification under NIS2 and CRA

    Rule-based classification from exploitation status and severity. It does not replace a case-by-case assessment.

    NIS2

    NIS2 is EU Directive (EU) 2022/2555 to raise the level of cybersecurity across the Union. It substantially broadens obligations compared with the first NIS directive: more sectors, mandatory risk management, staged reporting duties and personal accountability of senior management.

    Read in glossary
    High technical severity: assess and remediate the vulnerability in vulnerability handling under Art. 21(2)(e) NIS2 and document the decision.
    CRA

    The CRA is EU Regulation (EU) 2024/2847 setting horizontal cybersecurity requirements for „products with digital elements“ — from industrial controllers and software to connected consumer devices. For the first time manufacturers must ensure security across the entire product lifecycle, handle vulnerabilities and provide security updates.

    Read in glossary
    From 11.12.2027, Annex I Part II CRA requires manufacturers of affected products with digital elements to handle vulnerabilities without delay and provide security updates.
    ISO/IEC 27001

    ISO/IEC 27001 is the internationally leading standard for an information security management system (ISMS). It describes a risk-based, process-oriented framework to systematically plan, implement, review and improve information security.

    Read in glossary
    Control A.8.8, management of technical vulnerabilities: assess relevance to your systems, plan remediation and keep evidence.

    Description

    In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: openvswitch: cap upcall PID array size and pre-size vport replies The vport netlink reply helpers allocate a fixed-size skb with nlmsg_new(NLMSG_DEFAULT_SIZE, ...) but serialize the full upcall PID array via ovs_vport_get_upcall_portids(). Since ovs_vport_set_upcall_portids() accepts any non-zero multiple of sizeof(u32) with no upper bound, a CAP_NET_ADMIN user can install a PID array large enough to overflow the reply buffer, causing nla_put() to fail with -EMSGSIZE and hitting BUG_ON(err < 0). On systems with unprivileged user namespaces enabled (e.g., Ubuntu default), this is reachable via unshare -Urn since OVS vport mutation operations use GENL_UNS_ADMIN_PERM. kernel BUG at net/openvswitch/datapath.c:2414! Oops: invalid opcode: 0000 [#1] SMP KASAN NOPTI CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 65 Comm: poc Not tainted 7.0.0-rc7-00195-geb216e422044 #1 RIP: 0010:ovs_vport_cmd_set+0x34c/0x400 Call Trace: <TASK> genl_family_rcv_msg_doit (net/netlink/genetlink.c:1116) genl_rcv_msg (net/netlink/genetlink.c:1194) netlink_rcv_skb (net/netlink/af_netlink.c:2550) genl_rcv (net/netlink/genetlink.c:1219) netlink_unicast (net/netlink/af_netlink.c:1344) netlink_sendmsg (net/netlink/af_netlink.c:1894) __sys_sendto (net/socket.c:2206) __x64_sys_sendto (net/socket.c:2209) do_syscall_64 (arch/x86/entry/syscall_64.c:63) entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe (arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:130) </TASK> Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal exception Reject attempts to set more PIDs than nr_cpu_ids in ovs_vport_set_upcall_portids(), and pre-compute the worst-case reply size in ovs_vport_cmd_msg_size() based on that bound, similar to the existing ovs_dp_cmd_msg_size(). nr_cpu_ids matches the cap already used by the per-CPU dispatch configuration on the datapath side (ovs_dp_cmd_fill_info() serialises at most nr_cpu_ids PIDs), so the two sides stay consistent.

    Source: Debian LTS Advisories, suse_csaf, Ubuntu Security Notices, siemens_advisory, Debian Security Advisories, BSI WID Portal, BSI CSAF, cvelistv5, NVD (NIST), CVE.org (MITRE), Microsoft Security Update Guide, ENISA EUVD

    Affected products

    The following versions are affected. Older releases of the same product line are also vulnerable unless stated otherwise.

    Affected products
    Affected versionsFixed in
    LinuxLinux
    • 5.16 – < 6.1.175
    • 5.11 – < 5.15.209
    • 3.17 – < 5.10.258
    • 6.7 – < 6.12.91
    • —
    • 6.13 – < 6.18.33
    • 6.2 – < 6.6.141
    • 6.19 – < 7.0.10
    • 6.1.175
    • 5.15.209
    • 5.10.258
    • 6.12.91
    • 7.1
    • 6.18.33
    • 6.6.141
    • 7.0.10
    SiemensSIMATIC S7
    • 1500 TM MFP V1.1.1 GNU/Linux subsystem
    • —

    Vendors and products

    Affected operating systems

    Affected operating systems
    Linuxdebianlinuxbookworm
    Linuxdebianlinuxbullseye
    Linuxdebianlinuxtrixie
    Linuxdebianlinux-6.1bullseye
    Linuxubuntulinux-oracle-7.0noble
    Linuxlinuxlinux_kernel—

    References & sources

    Changes to this CVE

    Who changed this CVE and when: NVD (analysis, affected products, CVSS), the CVE publisher (CNA) and additional providers such as CISA (ADP).

    1. Record modifiedLinux

      Show 24 original changes
      Individual changes of this event as published by NVD
      TypeActionBeforeAfter
      Referenceadded
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      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/1d6c02b86329883aa467a3a61f8d34369db73a2f
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      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2091c6aa0df6aba47deb5c8ab232b1cb60af3519
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      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/8d59b80e69dddb665eb2de36e62859ab2073470e
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      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b39f763d720d623218bc1d95ace6855d7b474e81
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      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d9e47e29aacb9f8a9d59feb6ab5b128a9bbb40b0
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      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f99ac36b5d7c719d08a69fcdecce40f78a874e15
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      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f9ef3db77a383d66847fd082c2b437d8ae4d9c63
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      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/fa6e90bc443bed8dc0d55bc5ea5b27ffdfe37704
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      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/1d6c02b86329883aa467a3a61f8d34369db73a2f
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      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2091c6aa0df6aba47deb5c8ab232b1cb60af3519
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      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/8d59b80e69dddb665eb2de36e62859ab2073470e
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      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b39f763d720d623218bc1d95ace6855d7b474e81
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      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d9e47e29aacb9f8a9d59feb6ab5b128a9bbb40b0
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      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f99ac36b5d7c719d08a69fcdecce40f78a874e15
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      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f9ef3db77a383d66847fd082c2b437d8ae4d9c63
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      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/fa6e90bc443bed8dc0d55bc5ea5b27ffdfe37704
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      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/1d6c02b86329883aa467a3a61f8d34369db73a2f Types: Patch
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      Reference typeremoved
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2091c6aa0df6aba47deb5c8ab232b1cb60af3519 Types: Patch
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      Reference typeremoved
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/8d59b80e69dddb665eb2de36e62859ab2073470e Types: Patch
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      Reference typeremoved
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b39f763d720d623218bc1d95ace6855d7b474e81 Types: Patch
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      Reference typeremoved
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d9e47e29aacb9f8a9d59feb6ab5b128a9bbb40b0 Types: Patch
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      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f99ac36b5d7c719d08a69fcdecce40f78a874e15 Types: Patch
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      Reference typeremoved
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f9ef3db77a383d66847fd082c2b437d8ae4d9c63 Types: Patch
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      Reference typeremoved
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/fa6e90bc443bed8dc0d55bc5ea5b27ffdfe37704 Types: Patch
      —

      Source identifier: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

    2. Record modifiedSiemens ADP

      Show 2 original changes
      Individual changes of this event as published by NVD
      TypeActionBeforeAfter
      Affected versions (publisher)added
      —
      New affected value received. <a href="https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/blob/main/cves/2026/45xxx/CVE-2026-45840.json">CVE-2026-45840</a>
      Referenceadded
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      https://cert-portal.siemens.com/productcert/html/ssa-784472.html

      Source identifier: 0b142b55-0307-4c5a-b3c9-f314f3fb7c5e

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