CVE-2026-99165: In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: sctp: revalidate output stream after association connect wait When message interleaving is

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: sctp: revalidate output stream after association connect wait When message interleaving is

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: sctp: revalidate output stream after association connect wait When message interleaving is enabled, the first send waits for association establishment before building its data chunks. The wait drops the socket lock, and handshake processing can reduce the output stream count to the peer-advertised inbound stream count. sctp_stream_init() then frees the extension of every removed stream. The sender resumes with the stream that it checked before the wait. If the peer removed that stream, sctp_outq_tail() later dereferences its NULL extension. Fatal-oops policies then panic the host. KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x38-0x3f] RIP: sctp_outq_tail+0x49e/0xaa0 Call Trace: sctp_primitive_SEND sctp_sendmsg_to_asoc sctp_sendmsg A range check alone is insufficient. Stream reconfiguration can grow the output count again while the lock is released without recreating extensions freed by the earlier shrink. The stream can then be in range while its extension remains NULL. The send-buffer wait has the same issue. Factor the range and extension checks into a helper and repeat both after each send-path wait that dro

Description from the National Vulnerability Database, published by 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

What it means for a small business

Linux is on the computers, phones or browsers your team uses every day. Turn on automatic updates and restart: most of these fixes only take effect after a restart.

How likely is an attack? The Exploit Prediction Scoring System, run by FIRST (the global association of security response teams), puts the odds of this one being exploited in the next 30 days at 0.17%, higher than 6% of CVEs. That’s low, but low isn’t zero, and the odds jump the day someone publishes an exploit. Scored October 29, 2026, updated daily.

Check your own setup

Website check: reads what your site runs from the outside (WordPress version, plugins it can see, old server software) and matches it against this database.
Server check: what your web server says about itself, and whether that version has known flaws.

Sources

Part of the Huttenlocher Technologies vulnerability database, refreshed twice a day from CISA and the NVD. The title, category and plain-language guidance are ours; check the linked record before acting on a detail. This is general guidance, not a review of your systems.

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