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CVE intelligence

CVE-2026-74478

Vulnerability intelligence

Published Aug 15, 2026Sources checked Oct 9, 2026
9.8CRITICALCVSS out of 10
What this means

Review the available evidence

CVE-2026-74478 and is rated Critical severity with a CVSS score of 9.8. It is not in the current CISA KEV record we collected. That does not prove exploitation has not occurred.

CISA KEVNot listedBased on the latest collected catalog
EPSS0.9%Estimated 30-day exploitation probability
Ransomware useNot markedCISA KEV ransomware field
Threat actors0Source-linked actor relationships
Overview

What is CVE-2026-74478?

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

um: vector: fix use-after-free in vector_mmsg_rx()

When vector_mmsg_rx() discards a packet whose overlay header fails verify_header(), it frees the skb and continues the loop:

if (header_check < 0) { dev_kfree_skb_irq(skb); vp->estats.rx_encaps_errors++; continue; }

The normal and short-packet paths fall through to the bottom of the loop body, which clears the consumed slot and advances the cursors:

(*skbuff_vector) = NULL; mmsg_vector++; skbuff_vector++;

The verify_header() < 0 path skips that via continue, so the freed skb is left in skbuff_vector[] and the cursors do not advance. The next iteration reads the same slot, gets the freed skb, and frees it again, producing a refcount underflow / use-after-free in the RX path.

Discard the slot the same way the other paths do before continuing.

Only transports whose verify_header() can return negative are affected: GRE and L2TPv3 do so on a cookie/session-id mismatch (raw/tap do not), so any peer on such a transport can trigger it without authentication.

Source: NVD