CVE-2026-68138

HIGHPre-NVD 7.87.8
EchelonGraph scoreHIGH confidence

Score 7.8 from GitHub Security Advisory (severity: HIGH) published 2026-08-10. a secondary CVSS source baseline 7.8; sources differ by 0.0.

Triggered by: GitHub Security Advisory CVSS
Sources: epss, ghsa, secondary
Trending — 3 sources updated this weekElevated
7.8EG
EchelonGraph verdictPlan a fixSerious severity, but no confirmed exploitation yet.
  • High severity, but no confirmed exploitation yet
CISA-KEV: Not listedEPSS PROB: 0%CVSS: 7.8Exploit: Elevated riskExposed: 0

No vendor fix yet — apply a workaround or compensating control (WAF / firewall / segmentation) and watch for a patch.

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

net/sched: serialize qdisc_rtab_list against concurrent get/put

qdisc_get_rtab() and qdisc_put_rtab() mutate the process-global singly linked list qdisc_rtab_list and a plain non-atomic 'int refcnt' with no lock. This was only safe because every caller historically held the RTNL mutex, which serialized all rate-table lookups, inserts and frees.

That invariant no longer holds. cls_flower sets TCF_PROTO_OPS_DOIT_UNLOCKED, so tc_new_tfilter() keeps rtnl_held == false for it and sets TCA_ACT_FLAGS_NO_RTNL. That flag propagates through tcf_exts_validate_ex() -> tcf_action_init() -> tcf_action_init_1() -> tcf_police_init(), which calls qdisc_get_rtab()/qdisc_put_rtab() with the RTNL mutex NOT held. Two RTM_NEWTFILTER requests on different CPUs, each adding a flower filter with a police action carrying the same rate, then race on qdisc_rtab_list and on the non-atomic refcnt, leading to a use-after-free / double-free of the kmalloc-2k struct qdisc_rate_table. qdisc_rtab_list is a single global (not per-netns), so the corrupted object is shared system-wide.

BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in qdisc_put_rtab+0x12f/0x160 qdisc_put_rtab+0x12f/0x160 tcf_police_init+0xda9/0x1590 tcf_action_init_1+0x460/0x6b0 tcf_action_init+0x439/0xa40 tcf_exts_validate_ex+0x42d/0x550 fl_change+0xddd/0x7da0 tc_new_tfilter+0xaa7/0x2420 rtnetlink_rcv_msg+0x95e/0xe90 which belongs to the cache kmalloc-2k of size 2048

Protect qdisc_rtab_list and the refcount with a dedicated spinlock. The (sleeping, GFP_KERNEL) allocation in qdisc_get_rtab() is performed before taking the lock; if a concurrent inserter added an identical table in the meantime the freshly allocated one is freed under the lock, so no duplicate is leaked. qdisc_put_rtab() now decrements the refcount and unlinks under the same lock.

CVSS v3
7.8
EG Score
7.8(high)
EG Risk
56(Track)
EG Risk 56/100SSVC: Track

EG Risk is EchelonGraph's 0–100 priority score: it fuses intrinsic severity with real-world exploitation and automatability so you can rank equal-severity CVEs and fix the most dangerous first. Higher = act sooner. Distinct from the 0–10 EG Score (severity).

How it’s computed
Severity78% × 45%
Exploitation40% × 40%
Automatability30% × 15%
Action: Routine — remediate on your standard cadence.
EPSS PROB
0%
EPSS %ILE
3%
KEV
Not listed

Published

August 10, 2026

Last Modified

August 17, 2026

Advisory Details (2)

Auto-updated Aug 14, 2026
No patch confirmed yet.
generic

net/sched: serialize qdisc_rtab_list against concurrent get/put - kernel/git/stable/linux.git - Linux kernel stable tree

https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/fb29e1b41052488ee3f2d115d4a870497ebd7f7d
generic

net/sched: serialize qdisc_rtab_list against concurrent get/put - kernel/git/stable/linux.git - Linux kernel stable tree

https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/f43ee0c0730d6191629b5ee1ceae27b1ebfdc047

Vendor Advisories for CVE-2026-68138(2)

These vendors published their own advisory mentioning this CVE — often with vendor-specific remediation steps + affected product lists not in NVD.

Data Freshness Timeline

(refreshed 30× in last 7d / 42× in last 30d)

Each row is a source pipeline that fetched or updated this CVE on that date, with what changed. For example, "NVD update" means NVD published or revised its analysis for this CVE; "MITRE cvelistV5" means we ingested or refreshed it from the CNA feed. Most recent first.

  1. 2026-08-21 01:41 UTCGHSA enrichment
  2. 2026-08-20 14:17 UTCGHSA enrichment
  3. 2026-08-20 02:13 UTCEG score recompute
  4. 2026-08-20 02:13 UTCGHSA enrichment
  5. 2026-08-19 17:04 UTCEPSS rescore
  6. 2026-08-19 14:48 UTCGHSA enrichment
  7. 2026-08-19 03:20 UTCGHSA enrichment
  8. 2026-08-18 15:55 UTCEG score recompute
  9. 2026-08-18 15:54 UTCGHSA enrichment
  10. 2026-08-18 13:48 UTCEPSS rescore
  11. 2026-08-18 04:29 UTCGHSA enrichment
  12. 2026-08-17 17:05 UTCEG score recompute
  13. 2026-08-17 17:05 UTCGHSA enrichment
  14. 2026-08-17 13:47 UTCEPSS rescore
  15. 2026-08-17 05:40 UTCEG score recompute
  16. 2026-08-17 05:40 UTCGHSA enrichment
  17. 2026-08-17 05:11 UTCEG score recompute
  18. 2026-08-17 05:11 UTCGHSA enrichment
  19. 2026-08-16 19:55 UTCEG score recompute
  20. 2026-08-16 19:55 UTCGHSA enrichment
  21. 2026-08-16 14:56 UTCEPSS rescore
  22. 2026-08-16 08:31 UTCEG score recompute
  23. 2026-08-16 08:31 UTCGHSA enrichment
  24. 2026-08-15 21:07 UTCGHSA enrichment
  25. 2026-08-15 09:43 UTCEG score recompute
Show 17 more
  1. 2026-08-15 09:43 UTCGHSA enrichment
  2. 2026-08-15 01:30 UTCEPSS rescore
  3. 2026-08-14 22:19 UTCGHSA enrichment
  4. 2026-08-14 10:55 UTCEG score recompute
  5. 2026-08-14 10:55 UTCGHSA enrichment
  6. 2026-08-13 23:31 UTCEG score recompute
  7. 2026-08-13 23:31 UTCGHSA enrichment
  8. 2026-08-13 22:46 UTCEG score recompute 7.80
  9. 2026-08-13 22:45 UTCGHSA enrichment
  10. 2026-08-13 22:44 UTCMITRE cvelistV5CVSS v3 → 7.8 · severity → HIGH
  11. 2026-08-13 22:00 UTCEPSS rescore
  12. 2026-08-13 13:10 UTCEG score recompute
  13. 2026-08-13 13:10 UTCGHSA enrichment
  14. 2026-08-12 13:51 UTCEPSS rescore
  15. 2026-08-10 13:24 UTCNVD update
  16. 2026-08-10 12:21 UTCEG score recompute
  17. 2026-08-10 12:17 UTCMITRE cvelistV5first tracked

Publicly available exploits

(1 reference)

Working exploit code is in the public domain (1 GitHub PoC). Defenders should treat patch urgency accordingly — public PoCs typically lead to mass-exploitation within 24-72 hours.

  • GitHub PoCaramosf/CVE-2026-68138
    First seen Aug 11, 2026

    CVE-2026-68138 Linux qdisc rate-table race local privilege escalation PoC

    Open source ↗

Frequently asked(5)

What is CVE-2026-68138?
CVE-2026-68138 is a high vulnerability published on August 10, 2026. In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net/sched: serialize qdiscrtablist against concurrent get/put qdiscgetrtab() and qdiscputrtab() mutate the process-global singly linked list qdiscrtablist and a plain non-atomic 'int refcnt' with no lock. This was only safe because…
When was CVE-2026-68138 disclosed?
CVE-2026-68138 was first published in the National Vulnerability Database on August 10, 2026, with the most recent update on August 17, 2026. EchelonGraph re-ingests CVE updates from NVD on a 2-hour cycle, so this page reflects the latest published state.
Is CVE-2026-68138 actively exploited?
CVE-2026-68138 is not currently on CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. FIRST EPSS estimates a 0% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days, which ranks it in the top 97.0% of all scored CVEs.
What is the CVSS score of CVE-2026-68138?
CVE-2026-68138 has a CVSS v3 base score of 7.8 (NVD).
How do I remediate CVE-2026-68138?
Patch to the fixed version published by the affected vendor. Where vendor advisories exist for CVE-2026-68138, EchelonGraph cross-links them in the Vendor Advisories panel below — those typically contain the canonical remediation steps, fixed version numbers, and any vendor-specific mitigations.

Dependency Blast Radius

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