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CVE intelligence

CVE-2026-98491

Vulnerability intelligence

Published Oct 18, 2026Sources checked Oct 21, 2026
N/ACVSS not listedScore unavailable
What this means

Review the available evidence

CVE-2026-98491. It is not in the current CISA KEV record we collected. That does not prove exploitation has not occurred.

What to do next

Remediation and response

Microsoft Security Response Center guidance

Vendor revision: Oct 20, 2026

Release Notes

CISA KEVNot listedBased on the latest collected catalog
EPSS0.2%Estimated 30-day exploitation probability
Ransomware useNot markedCISA KEV ransomware field
Threat actors0Source-linked actor relationships
Overview

What is CVE-2026-98491?

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

net: openvswitch: conntrack: avoid modifying shared unconfirmed ct entry

In a case where skb with an unconfirmed ct entry gets cloned, we may end up committing both but with different sets of extensions.

The series of events:

1. The first clone wants to commit and runs the helpers wiring up the extension pointer into the expectation list.

2. Then it looses the confirmation keeping the entry unconfirmed.

3. Second clone now wants to commit labels and adds the new extension for that breaking the pointer in the expectation list causing UAF on the destruction path later.

While this is possible to trigger, there should be no practical network pipeline where committing both clones without modifications into the same zone is needed. So, let's just reset the entry in case for some reason we got an skb with a shared one during commit.

This doesn't affect any known use cases, but avoids any potential problems with sharing and modification of the unconfirmed ct entry.

The fixes tag points to the introduction of helpers, since that's the main UAF trigger for the sharing.

Source: NVD