CVE-2026-64551

About vulnerability

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

sctp: validate STALE_COOKIE cause length before reading staleness

When an ERROR chunk with a STALE_COOKIE cause is received in the COOKIE_ECHOED state, sctp_sf_do_5_2_6_stale() reads the 4-byte Measure of Staleness that follows the cause header:

err = (struct sctp_errhdr )(chunk->skb->data); stale = ntohl((__be32 *)((u8 *)err + sizeof(*err)));

err is the first cause in the chunk, not the STALE_COOKIE cause that caused the dispatch, and nothing guarantees the staleness field is present. sctp_walk_errors() only requires a cause to be as long as the 4-byte header, so for a STALE_COOKIE cause of length 4 the read runs past the cause, and for a minimal ERROR chunk past skb->tail. The value is echoed to the peer in the Cookie Preservative of the reply INIT, leaking uninitialized memory.

sctp_sf_cookie_echoed_err() already walks to the STALE_COOKIE cause, so check its length there and pass it to sctp_sf_do_5_2_6_stale(), which reads that cause instead of the first one. A STALE_COOKIE cause too short to hold the staleness field is discarded.

The read is reachable by any peer that can drive an association into COOKIE_ECHOED, including an unprivileged process using a raw SCTP socket in a user and network namespace.

Affected product:

AlmaLinux 9.2 ESU , CentOS 6 ELS , CentOS 7 ELS , CentOS 8.4 ELS , CentOS 8.5 ELS , CentOS Stream 8 ELS , RHEL 7 ELS , TuxCare 9.6 ESU

Affected packages:

kernel @ 3.10.0 (+7 more)

Live-patch status from KernelCare for each operating system.