CVE-2026-63870: ieee802154: 6lowpan: only accept IPv6 packets in lowpan_xmit()

Severity: high (CVSS 7.8 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: 2026-07-19 · updated 2026-10-26
Weakness: CWE-908

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ieee802154: 6lowpan: only accept IPv6 packets in lowpan_xmit() The aoe driver (or similar) generates a non-IPv6 packet (e.g., ETH_P_AOE) and queues it for transmission via dev_queue_xmit() on a 6LoWPAN interface (configured by the user or test case). Since the packet is not IPv6, the 6LoWPAN header_ops->create function (lowpan_header_create or header_create) returns early without initializing the lowpan_addr_info structure in the skb headroom. In the transmit function (lowpan_xmit), the driver calls lowpan_header (or setup_header) which unconditionally copies and uses the lowpan_addr_info from the headroom, which contains uninitialized data. Fix this by dropping non IPv6 packets. A similar fix is needed in net/bluetooth/6lowpan.c bt_xmit().

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 4.0 before 5.10.259; from 5.11 before 5.15.210; from 5.16 before 6.1.176; from 6.2 before 6.6.143; from 6.7 before 6.12.94; from 6.13 before 6.18.36 — fixed in 5.10.259, 5.15.210, 6.1.176, 6.6.143, 6.12.94, 6.18.36
Linux kernel: 4.0 — fixed in 7.1

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 5.10.259, 5.15.210, 6.1.176, 6.6.143; Linux kernel 7.1. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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