CVE-2026-98255

tcp: exclude old ACKs from tcp fast path

N/A
Published: October 6, 2026 at 08:45 AM UTC
Updated: October 19, 2026 at 10:18 AM UTC
1 product affected across 1 vendorLinux Kernel

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Severity
N/A
Exploit prediction
EPSS 0.2%

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: tcp: exclude old ACKs from tcp fast path Exclude old ACKs before SND.UNA from the tcp fast path as well as ACKs after SND.NXT. Such ACKs will fall through to the slow path, where tcp_ack() performs the appropriate validation and challenge ACK handling according to RFC5961 and Commit 3d501dd326fb1c7 ("tcp: do not accept ACK of bytes we never sent"). This prevents old ACKs from being accepted or modifying connection state as part of the fast path before appropriate ACK validation is applied. In particular, this prevents payload carried by a segment with an excessively old ACK from advancing RCV.NXT before the ACK is rejected.

Affected

Our own answer: ranges merged, affected separated from platform-only, with confidence and review flags.

Vendor states this is fixed in 4.14 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 5.10.* (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 5.10.271 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 5.15.* (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 5.15.222 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 6.1.* (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 6.1.189 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 6.12.* (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 6.12.112 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 6.18.* (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 6.18.54 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 6.6.* (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 6.6.158 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 7.2.* (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 7.2.8 (unaffected)
Vendor states this is fixed in 7.3 (unaffected)

Remediation

No guide yet

No remediation guidance has been written for this CVE yet, and no fixed version or vendor advisory is recorded against it.

Quick Info

StatusRECEIVED

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