CriticalCVE-2026-63978

    Linux Kernel: Race Condition (CVE-2026-63978)

    Published Last modified Sources: HKCERT, Ubuntu, Msrc Update Guide, CVE.org, BSI

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    What is affected, what to do

    In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net/handshake: Drain pending requests at net namespace exit The arguments to list_splice_init() in handshake_net_exit() are reversed. The call moves the local empty "requests" list onto hn->hn_requests, leaving the local list empty, so the subsequent drain loop runs zero iterations.

    Update Linux Kernel to version 6.6.160, Linux Kernel to version 6.12.93, Linux Kernel to version 6.18.44.

    Affected
    • Linux Kernel lt 6.4..6.6.160
    • Linux Kernel lt 6.7..6.12.93
    • Linux Kernel lt 6.13..6.18.44
    • Linux Kernel lt 6.19..7.0.12
    Fixed in
    • Linux Kernel 6.6.160
    • Linux Kernel 6.12.93
    • Linux Kernel 6.18.44
    • Linux Kernel 7.0.12
    • Linux Kernel 7.1

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

    Metrics

    9.8

    Priority

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

    Source: Vendor (CNA), CVSS v3

    9.8

    CVSS v3

    Severity Critical on the scale from 0 to 10.

    Source: HKCERT, Ubuntu, Msrc Update Guide, CVE.org, BSI

    0.5 %

    EPSS score

    Low — model estimates < 1% exploitation likelihood.

    Source: FIRST EPSS, percentile 42.2

    Show all metrics
    Severity
    Critical
    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
    83.96 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
    9.8 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
    9.8
    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“.

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    0.5 %
    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
    42.2
    High — this CVE ranks above the median of all CVEs scored today (rank ≥ 36%).
    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
    CISA assessment (SSVC)
    Exploitation: none known · automatable · Technical impact: total
    Source: CISA Vulnrichment, as of 16 October 2026
    CWE

    CWE is a catalogue of typical weakness types in software and hardware — such as flawed input validation, unsafe memory handling or poor authentication. Where a CVE names a concrete vulnerability in a concrete product, a CWE describes the underlying class of defect.

    Read in glossary
    CWE-362

    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: net/handshake: Drain pending requests at net namespace exit The arguments to list_splice_init() in handshake_net_exit() are reversed. The call moves the local empty "requests" list onto hn->hn_requests, leaving the local list empty, so the subsequent drain loop runs zero iterations. Pending handshake requests that had not yet been accepted are not torn down when the net namespace is destroyed; each one keeps a reference on a socket file and on the handshake_req allocation. Pass the source and destination in the documented order (list_splice_init(list, head) moves list onto head) so the pending list is transferred to the local scratch list and drained through handshake_complete(). Fixing the splice direction exposes a list-corruption race. After the splice each req->hr_list still has non-empty link pointers, threading the stack-local scratch list rather than hn_requests. A concurrent handshake_req_cancel() -- for example, from sunrpc's TLS timeout on a kernel socket whose netns reference was not taken -- finds the request through the rhashtable, calls remove_pending(), and sees !list_empty(&req->hr_list). __remove_pending_locked() then list_del_init()s an entry off the scratch list while the drain iterates, corrupting it. The same call arriving after the drain loop has run list_del() on an entry hits LIST_POISON instead. Have remove_pending() check HANDSHAKE_F_NET_DRAINING under hn_lock and report not-found when drain is in progress. The drain has already taken ownership; handshake_complete()'s existing test_and_set on HANDSHAKE_F_REQ_COMPLETED still arbitrates between drain and cancel for who calls the consumer's hp_done. Use list_del_init() rather than list_del() in the drain so req->hr_list does not carry LIST_POISON after drain releases the entry. The DRAINING guard in remove_pending() makes cancel return false, but cancel still falls through to test_and_set_bit on HANDSHAKE_F_REQ_COMPLETED and drops the request's hr_file reference. Without another pin, if that is the last reference, sk_destruct frees the request while it is still linked on the drain loop's local list. Pin each request's hr_file under hn_lock before releasing the list, and drop that drain pin after the loop finishes with the request.

    Source: HKCERT (CC BY 3.0 HK) · HKCERT rating: medium, Ubuntu Security Notices, Microsoft Security Update Guide, cvelistv5, NVD (NIST), BSI WID Portal, BSI CSAF

    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
    • 6.7 – < 6.12.93
    • 6.19 – < 7.0.12
    • —
    • 6.13 – < 6.18.44
    • 6.4 – < 6.6.160
    • 6.12.93
    • 7.0.12
    • 7.1
    • 6.18.44
    • 6.6.160

    Vendors and products

    Affected operating systems

    Affected operating systems
    Linuxubuntulinux-oracle-7.0noble

    Weakness classes (CWE)

    • CWE-362Concurrent Execution using Shared Resource with Improper Synchronization ('Race Condition')

      Class

      The product contains a concurrent code sequence that requires temporary, exclusive access to a shared resource, but a timing window exists in which the shared resource can be modified by another code sequence operating concurrently.

      Entry at MITRE CWE-362

    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 2 original changes
      Individual changes of this event as published by NVD
      TypeActionBeforeAfter
      Affected versions (publisher)added
      —
      Affected value modified. <a href="https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5/blob/main/cves/2026/63xxx/CVE-2026-63978.json">CVE-2026-63978</a>
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ee4b2ba9d30155f9945811cd3c0c1b06d45787a9

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

    2. Record modifiedCISA ADP

      Weakness type: CWE-362

      Show the original change
      Individual changes of this event as published by NVD
      TypeActionBeforeAfter
      Weakness type (CWE)added
      —
      CWE-362

      Source identifier: 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0

    3. Record modifiedLinux

      Show 8 original changes
      Individual changes of this event as published by NVD
      TypeActionBeforeAfter
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2bf24a7e190aae0ea47c78099938ae056c622e44
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/8c35539db0ab0bfa1ea44efab00b053261a69469
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/9ec20c9a5a04f2c3f1cf65d21f886d7aaa6189cd
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ea5fe6a73ca57e5150b8a38b341aef2636eb72f0
      Referenceremoved
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2bf24a7e190aae0ea47c78099938ae056c622e44
      —
      Referenceremoved
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/8c35539db0ab0bfa1ea44efab00b053261a69469
      —
      Referenceremoved
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/9ec20c9a5a04f2c3f1cf65d21f886d7aaa6189cd
      —
      Referenceremoved
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ea5fe6a73ca57e5150b8a38b341aef2636eb72f0
      —

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

    4. Record modifiedCISA ADP

      CISA assessment (SSVC): exploitation: none known, automatable: yes

      Show the original change
      Individual changes of this event as published by NVD
      TypeActionBeforeAfter
      SSVC assessmentadded
      —
      {"id":"CVE-2026-63978","role":"CISA Coordinator","options":[{"exploitation":"none"},{"automatable":"yes"},{"technicalImpact":"total"}],"version":"2.0.3","timestamp":"2026-10-16T15:34:31.214941Z"}

      Source identifier: 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0

    5. Record modifiedLinux

      Show 2 original changes
      Individual changes of this event as published by NVD
      TypeActionBeforeAfter
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2bf24a7e190aae0ea47c78099938ae056c622e44
      Affected versions (publisher)changed
      Linux, Linux
      Linux, Linux

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

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