Privacy-address renewal denial via stale regeneration state
Published Sep 24, 2026 · Updated Sep 24, 2026
IPv6 address autoconfiguration in Linux before 6.12.111 or 6.18.53 allows attackers to stop temporary address renewal. The addrconf worker increments a temporary address's regen_count before replacement creation, but a deprecated base prefix makes creation fail and leaves that state set after the prefix returns. Exploitation requires IPv6 privacy extensions and a SLAAC prefix that is deprecated and later restored; the affected host then loses future temporary privacy addresses for that prefix.
Summary
What happened
IPv6 address autoconfiguration in Linux before 6.12.111 or 6.18.53 allows attackers to stop temporary address renewal. The addrconf worker increments a temporary address's regen_count before replacement creation, but a deprecated base prefix makes creation fail and leaves that state set after the prefix returns. Exploitation requires IPv6 privacy extensions and a SLAAC prefix that is deprecated and later restored; the affected host then loses future temporary privacy addresses for that prefix.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2026-97472
- Published
- Sep 24, 2026
- Updated
- Sep 24, 2026
- Vendor
- The Linux Kernel Organization
- Product
- Linux
- Classifications
- Unavailable
- Attack vector
- adjacent
- Privileges
- unauthenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- Sep 24, 2026CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- Sep 24, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
Compare these published version ranges with your installed build and any vendor patches.
- Affected versionversion=0 <6.12.111
- Affected versionversion=0 <6.18.53
- Affected versionversion=1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 <4df5597c65446135362f72880995e8920f058fa0
- Affected versionversion=1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 <bff7b87dfa28a1502c18d0c6f1fadda5162fa854
- Affected versionversion=1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 <e20d8922aa8fe441d291364c96c2179a005b79ea
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Published CVSS scores
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Attacks
What attackers are doing with it
Daily unique IPs observed by Shadowserver honeypots for known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs). Missing observations do not establish an absence of attacks.
Activity data is delayed. The latest report is Sep 28, 2026.
Weakness, pattern, technique
No sourced classifications are available.
Public exploit references
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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