CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2026-43496 — Linux Linux Kernel security vulnerability

Medium CVSS 5.5

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net/sched: sch_red: Replace direct dequeue call with peek and qdisc_dequeue_peeked When red qdisc has children (eg qfq qdisc) whose peek() callback is qdisc_peek_dequeued(), we could get a kernel panic. When the parent of such qdiscs (eg illustrated in patch #3 as tbf) wants to retrieve an skb from its child (red in this case), it will do the following: 1a. do a peek() - and when sensing there's an skb the child can offer, then - the child in this case(red) calls its child's (qfq) peek. qfq does the right thing and will return the gso_skb queue packet. Note: if there wasnt a gso_skb entry then qfq will store it there. 1b. invoke a dequeue() on the child (red). And herein lies the problem. - red will call the child's dequeue() which will essentially just try to grab something of qfq's queue. [ 78.667668][ T363] KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000048-0x000000000000004f] [ 78.667927][ T363] CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 363 Comm: ping Not tainted 7.1.0-rc1-00033-g46f74a3f7d57-dirty #790 PREEMPT(full) [ 78.668263][ T363] Hardware name: Bochs Bochs, BIOS Bochs 01/01/2011 [ 78.668486][ T363] RIP: 0010:qfq_dequeue+0x446…

Severity
Medium
CVSS
5.5 (3.1)
Published
2026-05-21
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
linux/kernel
Weaknesses
CWE-476

Affected products

  • linux / linux_kernel
  • linux / linux_kernel / 7.1

Showing 2 representative product identities from 9 source matches. Confirm exact affected versions with the linked vendor and NVD evidence.

Matched remediation archetype

Buffer bounds, memory safety, and memory corruption

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

Check exposure

  • Identify affected native-code versions, build flags, architectures, parsers, codecs, drivers, and input paths in all shipped artifacts.
  • Determine whether untrusted data reaches the affected routine and the process privilege, sandbox, and network exposure.
  • Confirm statically linked, vendored, firmware, and platform-provided copies, not only package-manager records.

Remediate safely

  • Apply the maintained upstream correction or replace the affected component, then rebuild every dependent artifact from clean inputs.
  • Adopt bounds-checked interfaces, validated sizes and integer conversions, clear ownership, and memory-safe components where practical.
  • Enable supported compiler and runtime hardening and add sanitized tests and fuzz regression seeds derived from non-weaponized fixtures.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

The detailed catalog view below loads this exact record, its source evidence, and the full seven-phase agentic change plan.