CVE-2026-90110

inetpeer: randomize RB-tree node comparison using SipHash

State
Published
Severity
9.4 Critical
Published
Sep 17, 2026
Updated
Oct 19, 2026
Reserved
Sep 11, 2026

Read the record on cve.org

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

inetpeer: randomize RB-tree node comparison using SipHash

The inetpeer rate limiting system stores peer entries in a Red-Black tree keyed deterministically on the remote IP address. Because tree lookups walk the RB-tree using standard lexicographical comparisons (inetpeer_addr_cmp), an off-path adversary can predict the exact topology of the tree and the sequence of nodes traversed during lookups (the gc_stack candidate list).

By combining deterministic tree traversal with aggressive garbage collection (triggered when tree size exceeds inet_peer_threshold), an attacker can selectively force the eviction of targeted inet_peer nodes. When an evicted node is subsequently re-created upon receiving a new packet, its rate-limiting token bucket (rate_tokens, rate_last) is reset to full capacity. This creates a side-channel primitive allowing off-path attackers to bypass IP-keyed ICMP rate limits and infer open UDP ports (similar to SAD DNS style attacks).

Mitigate this by randomizing the RB-tree node comparison logic using SipHash with a secret key (inetpeer_hash_key) initialized via net_get_random_once(). Nodes are ordered in the tree by SipHash(addr, key) rather than raw IP addresses. Because the secret key is unknown to external entities, the tree layout and lookup traversal paths are unpredictable to off-path adversaries, breaking the deterministic eviction gadget.

Cache the computed 64-bit SipHash (hash) in struct inet_peer and compute the target hash (dhash) once at the beginning of inet_getpeer() to avoid recomputing SipHash at every step of the RB-tree walk.

Scores

CVSSScoreVectorSource
3.19.4 CriticalCVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:LLinux

Weaknesses

The record names no weakness.

Affected Products

ProductVersions
LinuxLinux
  • b145425f269a17ed344d737f746b844dfac60c82 to before b20e98f0bb668a59abaf7bcf85d75c073e90d352Affected
  • b145425f269a17ed344d737f746b844dfac60c82 to before 5f127e3cc9647a8a70db12c65dbd0de473545380Affected
  • b145425f269a17ed344d737f746b844dfac60c82 to before 199fcf285e498111e029137d088949bc6c26d578Affected
  • b145425f269a17ed344d737f746b844dfac60c82 to before 857681f6835d5b0a7bc4a34a026baeaaf5215623Affected
  • b145425f269a17ed344d737f746b844dfac60c82 to before 7109bb63667a53e4542ad845476f97d0c8b28a61Affected
  • b145425f269a17ed344d737f746b844dfac60c82 to before 2ee66e9487172fcd189bc52a767c30dad7141c09Affected
LinuxLinux
  • 4.14Affected
  • before 4.14Not affected
  • 6.1.188 through 6.1.*Not affected
  • 6.6.157 through 6.6.*Not affected
  • 6.12.110 through 6.12.*Not affected
  • 6.18.52 through 6.18.*Not affected
  • 7.2.6 through 7.2.*Not affected
  • 7.3 and laterNot affected

References

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