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National Vulnerability Database

National Vulnerability Database

NVD

National Vulnerability Database
  1. Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-22979 Detail

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: fix memory leak in skb_segment_list for GRO packets When skb_segment_list() is called during packet forwarding, it handles packets that were aggregated by the GRO engine. Historically, the segmentation logic in skb_segment_list assumes that individual segments are split from a parent SKB and may need to carry their own socket memory accounting. Accordingly, the code transfers truesize from the parent to the newly created segments. Prior to commit ed4cccef64c1 ("gro: fix ownership transfer"), this truesize subtraction in skb_segment_list() was valid because fragments still carry a reference to the original socket. However, commit ed4cccef64c1 ("gro: fix ownership transfer") changed this behavior by ensuring that fraglist entries are explicitly orphaned (skb->sk = NULL) to prevent illegal orphaning later in the stack. This change meant that the entire socket memory charge remained with the head SKB, but the corresponding accounting logic in skb_segment_list() was never updated. As a result, the current code unconditionally adds each fragment's truesize to delta_truesize and subtracts it from the parent SKB. Since the fragments are no longer charged to the socket, this subtraction results in an effective under-count of memory when the head is freed. This causes sk_wmem_alloc to remain non-zero, preventing socket destruction and leading to a persistent memory leak. The leak can be observed via KMEMLEAK when tearing down the networking environment: unreferenced object 0xffff8881e6eb9100 (size 2048): comm "ping", pid 6720, jiffies 4295492526 backtrace: kmem_cache_alloc_noprof+0x5c6/0x800 sk_prot_alloc+0x5b/0x220 sk_alloc+0x35/0xa00 inet6_create.part.0+0x303/0x10d0 __sock_create+0x248/0x640 __sys_socket+0x11b/0x1d0 Since skb_segment_list() is exclusively used for SKB_GSO_FRAGLIST packets constructed by GRO, the truesize adjustment is removed. The call to skb_release_head_state() must be preserved. As documented in commit cf673ed0e057 ("net: fix fraglist segmentation reference count leak"), it is still required to correctly drop references to SKB extensions that may be overwritten during __copy_skb_header().


Metrics

 
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CVSS 4.0 Severity and Vector Strings:

NIST CVSS score
NIST: NVD
N/A
NVD assessment not yet provided.

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URL Source(s) Tag(s)
https://cert-portal.siemens.com/productcert/html/ssa-019113.html siemens-SADP
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/0b27828ebd1ed3107d7929c3737adbe862e99e74 kernel.org Patch 
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/238e03d0466239410b72294b79494e43d4fabe77 kernel.org Patch 
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/3264881431e308b9c72cb8a0159d57a56d67dd79 kernel.org Patch 
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/88bea149db2057112af3aaf63534b24fab5858ab kernel.org Patch 
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/c114a32a2e70b82d447f409f7ffcfa3058f9d5bd kernel.org Patch 

Weakness Enumeration

CWE-ID CWE Name Source
CWE-401 Missing Release of Memory after Effective Lifetime cwe source acceptance level NIST  

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Change History

4 change records found show changes

Quick Info

CVE Dictionary Entry:
CVE-2026-22979
NVD Published Date:
01/23/2026
NVD Last Modified:
07/14/2026
Source:
kernel.org