CVE-2026-46244
Linux Kernel 6.2 – 6.6.142
Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:NSummary
CVE-2026-46244 is a critical-severity Use of Out-of-range Pointer Offset (CWE-823) vulnerability in Linux Linux Kernel. Its CVSS base score is 9.1 (Critical).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Privilege Escalation (T1068); ranked at the 25th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) and SA-15 (Development Process, Standards, and Tools) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2026-34106
Vulnerability Data
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: netfilter: nft_inner: Fix IPv6 inner_thoff desync In nft_inner_parse_l2l3(), when processing inner IPv6 packets, ipv6_find_hdr() correctly computes the transport header offset traversing all extension headers, but the result is immediately overwritten…
more
with nhoff + sizeof(_ip6h) (40 bytes), which only accounts for the IPv6 base header. This creates a desync between inner_thoff (wrong — points to extension header start) and l4proto (correct — e.g., IPPROTO_TCP), enabling transport header forgery and potential firewall bypass. This issue affects stable versions from Linux 6.2. For comparison, the normal (non-inner) IPv6 path correctly preserves ipv6_find_hdr()'s result. Removing the incorrect overwrite ensures that ipv6_find_hdr()'s calculated transport header offset is preserved, thereby fixing the desynchronization.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Control response
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- 2 hardening rules · 2 OS baselines
V1.4.1
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Developer testing and evaluation (including static analysis and fuzzing) directly finds unsafe pointer arithmetic before deployment.
Requiring documented development standards and tools can mandate safe pointer usage and compiler/runtime checks that stop the weakness from being introduced.
Security engineering principles can require bounds-checked pointer arithmetic or safe language constructs that structurally avoid out-of-range offsets.
Process isolation confines damage from invalid pointer offsets to a single address space, reducing overall impact.
Memory-protection controls limit the blast radius of an out-of-range pointer dereference without preventing or detecting the coding error itself.
Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Security testing can detect out-of-range pointer offsets before release.
Secure SDLC mandates input validation and bounds checking that can prevent out-of-range pointer offsets.
Application security requirements include memory-safety rules that reduce pointer-offset errors.
Secure architecture principles promote safe pointer handling and memory layout controls.
Secure coding standards directly forbid unsafe pointer arithmetic and require bounds checks.
Hardening callouts derived
Configuration rules from DISA STIG baselines that bear on weaknesses of the type cited by this CVE. Each rule is shown with the relationship its mapping actually records, against the CWE it was authored against. Derived via CVE→CWE over `controls_xwalks` (authoritative rows only; rows rated `none` are excluded).
Windows 10 (1 rule)
- V-220726 Data Execution Prevention (DEP) must be configured to at least OptOut. prevents CWE-823