CVE-2026-45257
HighCVSS 7.8Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
Low risk5th percentile — higher than 5% of all known CVEs
Summary
A vulnerability in the KTLS receive path decrypts data in place, allowing a local unprivileged user who can read a file to overwrite its contents by sending it over a loopback connection with KTLS receive enabled.
Risk Assessment
An attacker can overwrite setuid binaries or other trusted files, leading to privilege escalation and potential full system compromise. The modification bypasses file flags like schg and is written back to disk.
Recommendation
Apply the patch provided by the operating system vendor immediately. As a workaround, disable KTLS for loopback connections or restrict access to sendfile(2) for unprivileged users.
Original NVD description (English source)
The KTLS receive path decrypted each record in place, assuming that the mbufs holding received data were anonymous and safe to modify. This assumption does not hold for data placed on a socket by sendfile(2), which can reference file-backed memory directly through non-anonymous M_EXTPG pages or EXT_SFBUF mbufs. When the sender transmits such data over a loopback connection without enabling KTLS on the transmit side, the file-backed mbufs reach the receiver's decryption path unchanged. Decrypting a record in place then overwrites the backing file's page cache instead of a private copy of the data. An unprivileged local user who can read a file can overwrite its contents with data of their choosing by sending the file over a loopback connection on which they have enabled KTLS receive. The write modifies the page cache directly, so it bypasses file flags such as schg and is written back to disk. By overwriting a setuid binary or other trusted file, a local user can escalate privileges, potentially gaining full control of the affected system.