CVE-2026-98969

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

net/sched: em_text: reject unterminated algo before autoload

This is a follow-up to commit 9c572a83037a ("net/sched: fix potential
stack infoleak in em_text_dump()"), which zero-initialised the dump-side
struct. Sashiko pointed at a pre-existing bug that exposed the change-side
input-validation gap open. em_text_change() casts the raw netlink attribute payload to struct
tcf_em_text and passes conf->algo, a 16-byte array with no enforced NUL
terminator, to textsearch_prepare(). On the TS_AUTOLOAD retry
textsearch_prepare() calls request_module("ts_%s", algo); vsnprintf()
walks %s until it finds a NUL, so an algo[] with no NUL reads past the
array into the adjacent struct fields and payload and feeds those bytes
to the usermode helper command line. This is an out-of-bounds read and
a kernel memory disclosure. Reject the attribute when no NUL exists within TC_EM_TEXT_ALGOSIZ bytes,
matching the check xt_string has had since 3ab720881b6e. Conditions to recreate the bug:
- CAP_NET_ADMIN on the target netns (namespace-local via unshare -Urn
is enough)
- install clsact on an interface, then add a basic filter with one text
ematch whose algo[] is 16 bytes with no NUL (e.g. "A"*16) and
pattern_len at least 1
- the add fails with -ENOENT and the kernel invokes modprobe with a
module name made of "ts_" plus the 16 bytes and the adjacent payload