CVE-2026-31424

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: netfilter: x_tables: restrict xt_check_match/xt_check_target extensions for NFPROTO_ARP Weiming Shi says: xt_match and xt_target structs registered with NFPROTO_UNSPEC can be
loaded by any protocol family through nft_compat. When such a
match/target sets .hooks to restrict which hooks it may run on, the
bitmask uses NF_INET_* constants. This is only correct for families
whose hook layout matches NF_INET_*: IPv4, IPv6, INET, and bridge
all share the same five hooks (PRE_ROUTING ... POST_ROUTING). ARP only has three hooks (IN=0, OUT=1, FORWARD=2) with different
semantics. Because NF_ARP_OUT == 1 == NF_INET_LOCAL_IN, the .hooks
validation silently passes for the wrong reasons, allowing matches to
run on ARP chains where the hook assumptions (e.g. state->in being
set on input hooks) do not hold. This leads to NULL pointer
dereferences; xt_devgroup is one concrete example: Oops: general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0xdffffc0000000044: 0000 [#1] SMP KASAN NOPTI KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000220-0x0000000000000227] RIP: 0010:devgroup_mt+0xff/0x350 Call Trace: <TASK> nft_match_eval (net/netfilter/nft_compat.c:407) nft_do_chain (net/netfilter/nf_tables_core.c:285) nft_do_chain_arp (net/netfilter/nft_chain_filter.c:61) nf_hook_slow (net/netfilter/core.c:623) arp_xmit (net/ipv4/arp.c:666) </TASK> Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal exception in interrupt Fix it by restricting arptables to NFPROTO_ARP extensions only.
Note that arptables-legacy only supports: - arpt_CLASSIFY
- arpt_mangle
- arpt_MARK that provide explicit NFPROTO_ARP match/target declarations.