CVE-2026-63981
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net/sched: act_mirred: Fix blockcast recursion bypass leading to stack overflow tcf_mirred_act() checks sched_mirred_nest against MIRRED_NEST_LIMIT (4) to prevent deep recursion. However, when the action uses blockcast (tcfm_blockid != 0), the function returns at the tcf_blockcast() call BEFORE reaching the counter increment. As a result, the recursion counter never advances and the limit check is entirely bypassed. When two devices share a TC egress block with a mirred blockcast rule, a packet egressing on device A is mirrored to device B via blockcast; device B's egress TC re-enters tcf_mirred_act() via blockcast and mirrors back to A, creating an unbounded recursion loop: tcf_mirred_act -> tcf_blockcast -> tcf_mirred_to_dev -> dev_queue_xmit -> sch_handle_egress -> tcf_classify -> tcf_mirred_act -> (repeat) This recursion continues until the kernel stack overflows. The bug is reachable from an unprivileged user via unshare(CLONE_NEWUSER | CLONE_NEWNET): user namespaces grant CAP_NET_ADMIN in the new network namespace, which is sufficient to create dummy devices, attach clsact qdiscs with shared blocks, and install mirred blockcast filters. BUG: TASK stack guard page was hit at ffffc90000b7fff8 Oops: stack guard page: 0000 [#1] SMP KASAN NOPTI CPU: 2 UID: 1000 PID: 169 Comm: poc Not tainted 7.0.0-rc7-next-20260410 RIP: 0010:xas_find+0x17/0x480 Call Trace: xa_find+0x17b/0x1d0 tcf_mirred_act+0x640/0x1060 tcf_action_exec+0x400/0x530 basic_classify+0x128/0x1d0 tcf_classify+0xd83/0x1150 tc_run+0x328/0x620 __dev_queue_xmit+0x797/0x3100 tcf_mirred_to_dev+0x7b1/0xf70 tcf_mirred_act+0x68a/0x1060 [repeating ~30+ times until stack overflow] Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal exception in interrupt Fix this by incrementing sched_mirred_nest before calling tcf_blockcast() and decrementing it on return, mirroring the non-blockcast path. This ensures subsequent recursive entries see the updated counter and are correctly limited by MIRRED_NEST_LIMIT.
Affected versions
Linux kernel versions
6.19
and later are affected. Fixed in
7.0.12,
7.1
and their respective stable series.
References
3 totalFrequently asked questions
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What is CVE-2026-63981?
CVE-2026-63981 is a unscored severity Linux kernel vulnerability . It affects Linux kernel versions from 6.19 onward and has been patched in 7.0.12 and 7.1. CVE-2026-63981 has not been confirmed as actively exploited and is not listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
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Is there a patch available for CVE-2026-63981?
Yes — CVE-2026-63981 has been patched. Fixed versions include 7.0.12 and 7.1. If you are running Linux kernel 6.19 or later up to the fix versions, apply the relevant patch for your kernel branch.
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Is CVE-2026-63981 actively exploited?
No — CVE-2026-63981 has not been confirmed as actively exploited. It is not listed in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog.