What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2023-3106: Kernel: netlink socket crash (null pointer deref) in netlink_dump function

• Severity: high (CVSS 7.8 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.3% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2023-07-12 · updated 2026-06-17
• Weakness: CWE-476

Description

A NULL pointer dereference vulnerability was found in netlink_dump. This issue can occur when the Netlink socket receives the message(sendmsg) for the XFRM_MSG_GETSA, XFRM_MSG_GETPOLICY type message, and the DUMP flag is set and can cause a denial of service or possibly another unspecified impact. Due to the nature of the flaw, privilege escalation cannot be fully ruled out, although it is unlikely.

Affected products

• Fedoraproject Fedora: 38
• Linux kernel: from 3.15 before 3.16.39; from 3.17 before 4.4.223; from 4.5 before 4.7.10; 4.8-rc1, 4.8-rc2, 4.8-rc3, 4.8-rc4, 4.8-rc5, 4.8-rc6 — fixed in 3.16.39, 4.4.223, 4.7.10

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 3.16.39, 4.4.223, 4.7.10. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-3106
• https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2221501
• https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/1ba5bf993c6a3142e18e68ea6452b347f9cb5635
• https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2023-3106
• https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2221501
• https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/1ba5bf993c6a3142e18e68ea6452b347f9cb5635

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