---
id: CVE-2026-74620
title: "In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:\n\nnet/sched: act_gact, act_police: range check the fallback control action\n\ntcf_action_check_ctrlact() range checks the primary control action:\n\n\tif (!opcode)\n\t\tret = act…"
summary: "In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:\n\nnet/sched: act_gact, act_police: range check the fallback control action\n\ntcf_action_check_ctrlact() range checks the primary control action:\n\n\tif (!opcode)\n\t\tret = act…"
severity: none
published: '2026-08-22'
updated: '2026-10-14'
sourceUpdated: '2026-10-14T13:10:00.187'
source: NVD
sourceUrl: 'https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-74620'
references:
  - url: 'https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2e8df8c9190335475a3b64a159d3efd8cdd1cb73'
    label: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
  - url: 'https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/5344e01179baa37547ab29fd7b8614f83faa190c'
    label: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
  - url: 'https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/5f038affdacaffedf6a85a06cf59ec0a852d36a7'
    label: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
  - url: 'https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/6bcb8839aa2d686964a4154650afc4db91e1c514'
    label: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
  - url: 'https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/725efc2ab4a40affc4e285a2dc4896d103948a6c'
    label: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
  - url: 'https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/883b56ae58fe657d8497806c7059646e9ba6dbd0'
    label: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
  - url: 'https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/92f00f1d4d204a428b38e26fce3baee144b6955d'
    label: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
  - url: 'https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/efa58aeb6a99028b1fbc3ab2f31ba3a881211ad4'
    label: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
tags:
  - nvd
epss: 0.00177
epssPercentile: 0.06723
ingestedAt: '2026-10-14T13:30:58.518Z'
---

## Overview

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

net/sched: act_gact, act_police: range check the fallback control action

tcf_action_check_ctrlact() range checks the primary control action:

	if (!opcode)
		ret = action > TC_ACT_VALUE_MAX ? -EINVAL : 0;

TC_ACT_VALUE_MAX is TC_ACT_TRAP, so kernel-internal verdicts above it
cannot be set that way. But act_gact and act_police each carry a second,
independent control action supplied by user space that never reaches that
helper - TCA_GACT_PROB.paction and TCA_POLICE_RESULT. Both only reject
TC_ACT_GOTO_CHAIN, so any other value is stored verbatim and returned
verbatim from the action.

In particular user space can store TC_ACT_CONSUMED, which is
TC_ACT_VALUE_MAX + 1 and is deliberately not part of the UAPI value
range. That verdict tells every caller the action took ownership of the
skb, so nobody frees it: sch_handle_ingress(), sch_handle_egress() and
tcf_qevent_handle() all deliberately skip the free for it. The result is
one leaked sk_buff plus its data buffer per packet traversing the filter,
unbounded, for all traffic on the chain including kernel-generated
packets.

Both are trivially deterministic. act_gact clamps tcfg_pval to >= 1, so
with pval = 1 gact_determ() returns the fallback for every packet.
act_police has no mandatory rate, so rate = 0 leaves tcfp_mtu = ~0 and
tcf_police_mtu_check() always passes.

TC_ACT_CONSUMED was added by commit 720f22fed81b ("net: sched: refactor
reinsert action"), after both goto-chain guards were written:
commit 9469f375ab09 ("net/sched: act_gact: disallow 'goto chain' on
fallback control action") and
commit c08f5ed5d625 ("net/sched: act_police: disallow 'goto chain' on
fallback control action"). Neither guard was widened when the new
verdict appeared.

Factor the existing range test out of tcf_action_check_ctrlact() as
tcf_action_valid() and apply it to both fallbacks. The helper cannot call
tcf_action_check_ctrlact() directly because that also allocates a
goto_chain, which is exactly what these two sites must not do.

Reproduced on v7.2-rc6: kmemleak reports one leaked 232-byte
skbuff_head_cache object plus its 704-byte data buffer per packet. With
this patch both configurations are rejected with -EINVAL and kmemleak
reports none.

## Remediation

Refer to the linked advisories for vendor-supplied fixes and affected version ranges.