CVE-2026-53220: netfilter: revalidate bridge ports

Severity: medium (CVSS 5.5 v3.1)
Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
EPSS: 0.1% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
Public exploit or detection template: none known
Published: 2026-06-25 · updated 2026-10-30
Weakness: CWE-476

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: netfilter: revalidate bridge ports ebt_redirect_tg() dereferences br_port_get_rcu() return without a NULL check, causing a kernel panic when the bridge port has been removed between the original hook invocation and an NFQUEUE reinject. A mere NULL check isn't sufficient, however. As sashiko review points out userspace can not only remove the port from the bridge, it could also place the device in a different virtual device, e.g. macvlan. If this happens, we must drop the packet, there is no way for us to reinject it into the bridge path. Switch to _upper API, we don't need the bridge port structure. Also, this fix keeps another bug intact: Both nfnetlink_log and nfnetlink_queue use CONFIG_BRIDGE_NETFILTER too aggressive, which prevents certain logging features when queueing in bridge family: NETFILTER_FAMILY_BRIDGE can be enabled while the old CONFIG_BRIDGE_NETFILTER cruft is off. Fixes tag is a common ancestor, this was always broken.

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 2.6.36 before 6.12.94; from 6.13 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 6.12.94, 6.18.36, 7.0.13
Linux: 2.6.36 — fixed in 7.1

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 6.12.94, 6.18.36, 7.0.13; Linux 7.1. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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