CVE-2026-53362 — Kernel
HIGHCVE-2026-53362 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.8) Out-of-bounds Write vulnerability in Kernel. It is in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (added 2026-08-27) — treat it as actively exploited and patch now. A fix is available for Kernel — see the affected versions and patch details below.
ipv6: account for fraggap on the paged allocation path
Exploitation Status
Actively exploited in the wild
- Confirmed by CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2026-08-27. Federal agencies were required to remediate by 2026-08-30.
- A successful exploit gives an attacker total control of the affected component, not partial access.
Exploitation and automatability from CISA (KEV catalog and SSVC triage) for CVE-2026-53362.
EPSS Exploitation Probability
Probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, from FIRST.org EPSS.
How urgent is this, really
CVE-2026-53362 by exploitation likelihood (EPSS) against impact (CVSS). Outside the shaded patch-first corner.
Where this sits among everything scored
Of 383,485 CVEs with a current EPSS score, this one falls in the < 10% band (highlighted). Counts from FIRST.org, log-scaled.
Real-World Exposure
KernelReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Linux packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
ipv6: account for fraggap on the paged allocation path
In __ip6_append_data(), when the paged-allocation branch is taken (MSG_MORE / NETIF_F_SG / large fraglen), alloclen and pagedlen are computed as
alloclen = fragheaderlen + transhdrlen;
pagedlen = datalen - transhdrlen;
datalen already includes fraggap (datalen = length + fraggap). When fraggap is non-zero, this is not the first skb and transhdrlen is zero. The fraggap bytes carried over from the previous skb are copied just past the fragment headers in the new skb's linear area. The linear area is therefore undersized by fraggap bytes while pagedlen is overstated by the same amount, and the copy writes past skb->end into the trailing skb_shared_info.
An unprivileged user can trigger this via a UDPv6 socket using MSG_MORE together with MSG_SPLICE_PAGES.
The bad accounting was introduced by commit 773ba4fe9104 ("ipv6: avoid partial copy for zc"). Before commit ce650a166335 ("udp6: Fix __ip6_append_data()'s handling of MSG_SPLICE_PAGES"), the negative copy value caused -EINVAL to be returned. That later commit allowed MSG_SPLICE_PAGES to proceed in this case, making the corruption triggerable.
The non-paged branch sets alloclen to fraglen, which already accounts for fraggap because datalen does. Bring the paged branch in line by adding fraggap to alloclen and subtracting it from pagedlen.
After this adjustment, copy no longer collapses to -fraggap on the paged path, so remove the stale comment describing that old arithmetic. Since a negative copy is no longer expected for a valid MSG_SPLICE_PAGES case, remove the MSG_SPLICE_PAGES exception from the negative copy check.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐧Linux | Kernel | ≥ 6.0.0&&< 6.1.177 | 6.1.177 |
Affected Products
linux kernellinuxDetection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for Kernel, including transitive dependencies — a direct dependency you never call can still pull in a vulnerable version.
Fix
Update Kernel to 6.1.177 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-53362 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
Constrain what reaches the vulnerable code: limit the size and shape of untrusted input, isolate the affected component in a sandboxed or least-privileged process, and enable the platform's memory-safety mitigations (ASLR, stack protector, hardened allocator) so an out-of-bounds access is more likely to fail closed than to be exploitable.
Fixing This On Your OS
If you run this on a Linux distribution, patch through your package manager against the distro's own security advisory below — it tracks the exact backported fix for your release, which can ship on a different timeline (and sometimes a different severity) than the upstream project.
See the security bulletin for a detailed mitigation procedure.Source: Red Hat security advisory for CVE-2026-53362 (CC BY 4.0)
| Product | Fixed in | Advisory |
|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA for RHEL 10 | kernel-0:6.12.0-231.14.el10nv | RHSA-2026:34927 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 | kernel-0:6.12.0-211.30.1.el10_2 | RHSA-2026:34911 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 | kpatch-patch | RHSA-2026:43826 |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10.0 Extended Update Support | kernel-0:6.12.0-55.86.1.el10_0 | RHSA-2026:35840 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-53362 in your dependencies?
Find it across Linux, including transitive dependencies.