CVE-2026-68300

About vulnerability

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

sctp: auth: verify auth requirement when auth_chunk is NULL

sctp_auth_chunk_verify() returns true unconditionally when chunk->auth_chunk is NULL, silently skipping authentication. This is incorrect when:

1. skb_clone() failed in the BH receive path, leaving auth_chunk NULL. In sctp_endpoint_bh_rcv() asoc is NULL for new connections, so the early sctp_auth_recv_cid() check cannot catch this.

2. No AUTH chunk precedes COOKIE-ECHO, so skb_clone() is never called and auth_chunk remains NULL.

Fix by checking sctp_auth_recv_cid() when auth_chunk is NULL: if authentication is required, return false to drop the chunk; otherwise continue normally.

Affected product:

AlmaLinux 9.2 ESU , CentOS 7 ELS , CentOS 8.4 ELS , CentOS 8.5 ELS , CentOS Stream 8 ELS , Debian 10 ELS , RHEL 7 ELS , TuxCare 9.6 ESU

Affected packages:

kernel @ 4.18.0 (+7 more)

Live-patch status from KernelCare for each operating system.