---
id: "CVE-2026-99165"
kind: "vulnerability"
aliases: ["CVE-2026-99165"]
title: "Linux kernel SCTP: stream removed during connect wait causes NULL dereference"
severity: "unknown"
cvss: null
epss: null
exploited: false
status: "open"
category: "runtime"
products: []
ecosystems: []
tags: ["linux-kernel", "runtime", "sctp", "self-hosted"]
not_affected_if: ["no-sctp-use"]
published_at: "2026-10-28T11:17:36+00:00"
first_seen_at: "2026-10-28T11:32:36+00:00"
updated_at: "2026-10-28T11:35:41+00:00"
sources: [{"source": "nvd", "url": "https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-99165", "first_seen_at": "2026-10-28T11:32:36+00:00"}]
---

# Linux kernel SCTP: stream removed during connect wait causes NULL dereference

When SCTP message interleaving is enabled, a send that waits for association setup can resume using an output stream the peer removed during the handshake, dereferencing a freed extension. An attacker-controlled peer can crash the host, and the sources describe a kernel oops or panic under fatal-oops policies.

_Summary, check and fix written by a model from the sources; labelled as such._

## Timeline

- 2026-10-28T11:32:36+00:00 nvd https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-99165

## From the sources

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 drops the socket lock.  Once the lock is
reacquired, the validation remains stable through data creation and
queueing.

If validation fails after the connect wait, the auto-created association is
already established.  Return ESRCH so the existing caller path keeps it
under state-machine ownership instead of freeing it directly, which would
leave protocol, counter and socket state inconsistent.

---

_Free to read at a human pace. An API with keys and an MCP server are in preparation; early access: hello@infrastack.ai_