What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-72051: net: ip6_tunnel: require CAP_NET_ADMIN in the device netns for changelink

• Severity: high (CVSS 8.8 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: 2026-08-15 · updated 2026-10-19
• Weakness: CWE-862

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: ip6_tunnel: require CAP_NET_ADMIN in the device netns for changelink ip6_tnl_changelink() operates on at most two netns, dev_net(dev) and the tunnel link netns t->net. They differ once the device is created in or moved to a netns other than the one the request runs in. The rtnl changelink path checks CAP_NET_ADMIN only against dev_net(dev), so a caller privileged there but not in t->net can rewrite a tunnel that lives in t->net. Gate ip6_tnl_changelink() on rtnl_dev_link_net_capable() at its top, before any attribute is parsed.

Affected products

• Linux kernel: 3.12 — fixed in 7.2

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 7.2. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/234cd54fc500f69db43e37de38603da617fbbeea
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2496fa0b7d180b3ad356b514e7ff93bb14e6140a
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2636d061bc237a2446a146e42dcc6563acfa7432
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2d53ee7daabe733deb81f51d2cc90188f8ad59a1
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/5252db8fb604321133138c7069d6fc3fcd89cdee
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/7f68f7928484f463a5bc0d50e6fdd8d16f55a5aa
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/82e53e7281c71e174f9f5877c566a623c637b406
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d4bcc202a3530c856e1cb183384bc9cc8fddab22

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