net/sched: act_mirred: Fix blockcast recursion bypass leading to stack overflow
Key facts
- Attack vector
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- Privileges required
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- User interaction
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- Attack complexity
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- Impact type
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- Confidentiality · integrity · availability
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- Fix status
- Partial Red Hat: 1 without a fix
No CVSS vector from any source. Fix status from CNA and Red Hat.
Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net/sched: act_mirred: Fix blockcast recursion bypass leading to stack overflow tcf_mirred_act() checks sched_mirred_nest against MIRRED_NEST_LIMIT (4) to prevent deep recursion. However, when the action uses blockcast (tcfm_blockid != 0), the function returns at the tcf_blockcast() call BEFORE reaching the counter increment. As a result, the recursion counter never advances and the limit check is entirely bypassed. When two devices share a TC egress block with a mirred blockcast rule, a packet egressing on device A is mirrored to device B via blockcast; device B's egress TC re-enters tcf_mirred_act() via blockcast and mirrors back to A, creating an unbounded recursion loop: tcf_mirred_act -> tcf_blockcast -> tcf_mirred_to_dev -> dev_queue_xmit -> sch_handle_egress -> tcf_classify -> tcf_mirred_act -> (repeat) This recursion continues until the kernel stack overflows. The bug is reachable from an unprivileged user via unshare(CLONE_NEWUSER | CLONE_NEWNET): user namespaces grant CAP_NET_ADMIN in the new network namespace, which is sufficient to create dummy devices, attach clsact qdiscs with shared blocks, and install mirred blockcast filters. BUG: TASK stack guard page was hit at ffffc90000b7fff8 Oops: stack guard page: 0000 [#1] SMP KASAN NOPTI CPU: 2 UID: 1000 PID: 169 Comm: poc Not tainted 7.0.0-rc7-next-20260410 RIP: 0010:xas_find+0x17/0x480 Call Trace: xa_find+0x17b/0x1d0 tcf_mirred_act+0x640/0x1060 tcf_action_exec+0x400/0x530 basic_classify+0x128/0x1d0 tcf_classify+0xd83/0x1150 tc_run+0x328/0x620 __dev_queue_xmit+0x797/0x3100 tcf_mirred_to_dev+0x7b1/0xf70 tcf_mirred_act+0x68a/0x1060 [repeating ~30+ times until stack overflow] Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal exception in interrupt Fix this by incrementing sched_mirred_nest before calling tcf_blockcast() and decrementing it on return, mirroring the non-blockcast path. This ensures subsequent recursive entries see the updated counter and are correctly limited by MIRRED_NEST_LIMIT.
Why it matters now
SSVC decision points
Not available: CISA has not published SSVC decision points for this record.
Affected products
Remediation
- Fix · CNA Linux (Linux) Fixed in 7.0.12, 7.1
Vendor assessments
Red Hat
Red Hat rating: Moderate. Red Hat's page for this CVE →
| Product | Status | Plan or fix |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 | Affected | No fix planned: Out of support scope |
Not affected: 4 products
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9
Timeline
- 2026-10-02 Threatist record created from CVE-2026-63981
- 2026-10-03 Alias added: GHSA-v39p-wrrc-5j75
- 2026-10-13 Affected versions changed · Red Hat
References
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Sources
- CVE-2026-63981 · CVE Program
- CVE-2026-63981 · NVD
- FIRST EPSS
- GHSA-v39p-wrrc-5j75 · GitHub Advisory Database · CC BY 4.0
- CVE-2026-63981 · Red Hat security data · CC BY 4.0
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