Medium severity · published Jun 25, 2026
CVE-2026-53227
net: openvswitch: fix possible kfree_skb of ERR_PTR
5.5
CVSS
0.1%
EPSS
No
On KEV
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: openvswitch: fix possible kfree_skb of ERR_PTR After the patch in the "Fixes" tag, the allocation of the "reply" skb can happen either before or after locking the ovs_mutex. However, error cleanups still follow the classical reversed order, assuming "reply" is allocated before locking: it is freed after unlocking. If "reply" allocation happens after locking the mutex and it fails, "reply" is left with an ERR_PTR, and execution jumps to the correspondent cleanup stage which will try to free an invalid pointer. Fix this by setting the pointer to NULL after having saved its error value.
CVSS vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Attack vector
Local
Complexity
Low
Privileges
Low
User interaction
None
Confidentiality
None
Integrity
None
Availability
High
Scope
Unchanged
Exploitation
Is it being used?
Exploit prediction (EPSS)0.1% · higher than 3% of CVEs
Exploited in the wildNo evidence yet
CISA KEVNot listed
Ransomware campaign useNot known
Affected products
Which versions
KE
Kernel · Linux
3.16 before 5.10.259; 5.11 before 5.15.210; 5.16 before 6.1.176; 6.2 before 6.6.143; 6.7 before 6.12.94; 6.13 before 6.18.36; +8 more · source: NVD
LI
Linux · Linux
893f139b9a6c00c097b9082a90f3041cfb3a0d20 before e248fb2e680deb2bd37bac551b72638fe4938a76; 893f139b9a6c00c097b9082a90f3041cfb3a0d20 before 0bb5b2dc1b90aa7dd1473fc8c4d813a29255ff8d; 893f139b9a6c00c097b9082a90f3041cfb3a0d20 before 971b1b37774f13acc5add0a2843f8598446b8598; 893f139b9a6c00c097b9082a90f3041cfb3a0d20 before 25fdf53698535fe8790237f5a8a9626791429785; 893f139b9a6c00c097b9082a90f3041cfb3a0d20 before e3d509a1b71396e1452060dbf84a805fd1c3c549; 893f139b9a6c00c097b9082a90f3041cfb3a0d20 before ecc55aad3390129a87106841f4b68bf3d70c9264; +3 more · source: vendor