What is CVE-2026-45998?

CVE-2026-45998 is a unscored severity Linux kernel vulnerability, affecting Linux kernel versions from 6.2 onward and patched in 6.6.140, 6.12.86, 6.18.27 and others. CVE-2026-45998 has not been confirmed as actively exploited and is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

What is the CVSS score for CVE-2026-45998?

CVE-2026-45998 has a CVSS score of pending NVD analysis out of 10, rated awaiting scoring severity.

Is there a patch available for CVE-2026-45998?

Yes, CVE-2026-45998 has been patched. Fixed versions include 6.6.140, 6.12.86, 6.18.27 and others. If you are running Linux kernel 6.2 or later up to the fix versions, apply the relevant patch for your kernel branch.

Is CVE-2026-45998 actively exploited?

CVE-2026-45998 has not been confirmed as actively exploited and is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

CVE-2026-45998

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: rxrpc: Fix potential UAF after skb_unshare() failure If skb_unshare() fails to unshare a packet due to allocation failure in rxrpc_input_packet(), the skb pointer in the parent (rxrpc_io_thread()) will be NULL'd out. This will likely cause the call to trace_rxrpc_rx_done() to oops. Fix this by moving the unsharing down to where rxrpc_input_call_event() calls rxrpc_input_call_packet(). There are a number of places prior to that where we ignore DATA packets for a variety of reasons (such as the call already being complete) for which an unshare is then avoided. And with that, rxrpc_input_packet() doesn't need to take a pointer to the pointer to the packet, so change that to just a pointer.

Package Linux Kernel

Published 2026-05-27

Last modified 2026-05-27

Patch available

Yes

Affected versions

Linux kernel versions 6.2 and later are affected. Fixed in 6.6.140, 6.12.86, 6.18.27, 7.0.4, 7.1-rc1 and their respective stable series.

Affected from

≥ 6.2

Fixed in

✓ 6.6.140 6.6.x ✓ 6.12.86 6.12.x ✓ 6.18.27 6.18.x ✓ 7.0.4 7.0.x ✓ 7.1-rc1

References

The following references provide additional information about CVE-2026-45998 including vendor advisories, patch commits, exploit details, and third-party analysis. Links are sourced from the NIST NVD database.

Kernel patch commit
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/1f2740150f904bfa60e4bad74d65add3ccb5e7f8
Patch
Kernel patch commit
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/8fde6296c4d4da2be7ab761305ab7f232b94eefd
Patch
Kernel patch commit
https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/996b0487b3cdda4c91811dbb1c9564626bc840bd
Patch

5 patch commits total View all on NVD

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-45998?

CVE-2026-45998 is a unscored severity Linux kernel vulnerability . It affects Linux kernel versions from 6.2 onward and has been patched in 6.6.140, 6.12.86, 6.18.27 and others. CVE-2026-45998 has not been confirmed as actively exploited and is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
Is there a patch available for CVE-2026-45998?

Yes — CVE-2026-45998 has been patched. Fixed versions include 6.6.140, 6.12.86, 6.18.27 and others. If you are running Linux kernel 6.2 or later up to the fix versions, apply the relevant patch for your kernel branch.
Is CVE-2026-45998 actively exploited?

No — CVE-2026-45998 has not been confirmed as actively exploited. It is not listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog.