CVE-2026-72338
HIGHCVE-2026-72338 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.8) vulnerability in Kernel. O3 Security confirms whether CVE-2026-72338 is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
net/sched: act_pedit: fix TOCTOU heap OOB write in tc offload
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:
net/sched: act_pedit: fix TOCTOU heap OOB write in tc offload
There is a TOCTOU race condition in flower lockless approach between sizing a flow_rule buffer and filling it. [email protected] reports: The cls_flower classifier operates with TCF_PROTO_OPS_DOIT_UNLOCKED (fl_change runs without RTNL), while RTM_NEWACTION holds RTNL, so the independent locking domains make the race reachable in practice. KASAN confirms: BUG: KASAN: slab-out-of-bounds in tcf_pedit_offload_act_setup+0x81b/0x930 Write of size 4 at addr ffff888001f27520 by task poc-toctou/312 The buggy address is located 0 bytes to the right of allocated 288-byte region [ffff888001f27400, ffff888001f27520) (cache kmalloc-512)
Note: The result is a heap OOB write attacker-controlled content into the adjacent slab object (requires CAP_NET_ADMIN).
The fix introduces reading tcfp_nkeys under act->tcfa_lock in all places using a new tcf_pedit_nkeys_locked() which replaces the old tcf_pedit_nkeys(). Additionally we close the remaining TOCTOU window between the sizing read and the fill reads by more careful accounting. Rather than silently truncating the key count, which leads to incorrect action semantics offloaded to hardware and secondary OOB writes if the remaining capacity is zero or consumed by prior actions, we enforce remaining capacity checks and return -ENOSPC if the required space exceeds the remaining capacity.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐧Linux | Kernel | ≥ 4.11.0&&< 6.6.145 | 6.6.145 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for Kernel. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update Kernel to 6.6.145 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-72338 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 pinpoints whether CVE-2026-72338 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.
Tailored to CVE-2026-72338. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-72338 in your dependencies?
O3 detects CVE-2026-72338 across Linux dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.