NVD Vulnerability Detail
Search Exploit, PoC
CVE-2026-43027
Summary

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

netfilter: nf_conntrack_helper: pass helper to expect cleanup

nf_conntrack_helper_unregister() calls nf_ct_expect_iterate_destroy()
to remove expectations belonging to the helper being unregistered.
However, it passes NULL instead of the helper pointer as the data
argument, so expect_iter_me() never matches any expectation and all
of them survive the cleanup.

After unregister returns, nfnl_cthelper_del() frees the helper
object immediately. Subsequent expectation dumps or packet-driven
init_conntrack() calls then dereference the freed exp->helper,
causing a use-after-free.

Pass the actual helper pointer so expectations referencing it are
properly destroyed before the helper object is freed.

BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in string+0x38f/0x430
Read of size 1 at addr ffff888003b14d20 by task poc/103
Call Trace:
string+0x38f/0x430
vsnprintf+0x3cc/0x1170
seq_printf+0x17a/0x240
exp_seq_show+0x2e5/0x560
seq_read_iter+0x419/0x1280
proc_reg_read+0x1ac/0x270
vfs_read+0x179/0x930
ksys_read+0xef/0x1c0
Freed by task 103:
The buggy address is located 32 bytes inside of
freed 192-byte region [ffff888003b14d00, ffff888003b14dc0)

Publication Date May 2, 2026, 12:16 a.m.
Registration Date May 2, 2026, 4:07 a.m.
Last Update May 2, 2026, 12:24 a.m.
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