CVE-2026-52940: tun: zero the whole vnet header in tun_put_user()

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.5 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2026-06-24 · updated 2026-07-08

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: tun: zero the whole vnet header in tun_put_user() tun_put_user() declares an on-stack struct virtio_net_hdr_v1_hash_tunnel without zeroing it. For a non-tunnel skb, virtio_net_hdr_tnl_from_skb() only initializes the first 10 bytes (sizeof(struct virtio_net_hdr)), leaving bytes 10..23 (num_buffers and the hash/tunnel fields) as stack garbage. An unprivileged user can set the vnet header size to 24 with TUNSETVNETHDRSZ, so __tun_vnet_hdr_put() copies all 24 bytes of the partially-initialized struct to userspace, leaking 14 bytes of kernel stack on every read of a non-tunnel packet. Fix it the same way tun_get_user() already does by zeroing the whole header right after declaration.

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 6.17 before 6.18.36; from 6.19 before 7.0.13; 7.1-rc1, 7.1-rc2, 7.1-rc3, 7.1-rc4, 7.1-rc5, 7.1-rc6 (+1) — fixed in 6.18.36, 7.0.13

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 6.18.36, 7.0.13. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

Get alerted when CVE-2026-52940 or the next vulnerability affects your stack