CVE-2025-39852: In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net/tcp: Fix socket memory leak in TCP-AO failure handling for IPv6 When tcp_ao_copy_all

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net/tcp: Fix socket memory leak in TCP-AO failure handling for IPv6 When tcp_ao_copy_all_m

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net/tcp: Fix socket memory leak in TCP-AO failure handling for IPv6 When tcp_ao_copy_all_matching() fails in tcp_v6_syn_recv_sock() it just exits the function. This ends up causing a memory-leak: unreferenced object 0xffff0000281a8200 (size 2496): comm "softirq", pid 0, jiffies 4295174684 hex dump (first 32 bytes): 7f 00 00 06 7f 00 00 06 00 00 00 00 cb a8 88 13 ................ 0a 00 03 61 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ...a............ backtrace (crc 5ebdbe15): kmemleak_alloc+0x44/0xe0 kmem_cache_alloc_noprof+0x248/0x470 sk_prot_alloc+0x48/0x120 sk_clone_lock+0x38/0x3b0 inet_csk_clone_lock+0x34/0x150 tcp_create_openreq_child+0x3c/0x4a8 tcp_v6_syn_recv_sock+0x1c0/0x620 tcp_check_req+0x588/0x790 tcp_v6_rcv+0x5d0/0xc18 ip6_protocol_deliver_rcu+0x2d8/0x4c0 ip6_input_finish+0x74/0x148 ip6_input+0x50/0x118 ip6_sublist_rcv+0x2fc/0x3b0 ipv6_list_rcv+0x114/0x170 __netif_receive_skb_list_core+0x16c/0x200 netif_receive_skb_list_internal+0x1f0/0x2d0 This is because in tcp_v6_syn_recv_sock (and the IPv4 counterpart), when exiting upon err

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 0.15%, higher than 3% of CVEs. That’s low, but low isn’t zero, and the odds jump the day someone publishes an exploit. Scored October 28, 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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