CVE-2026-43026

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

netfilter: ctnetlink: zero expect NAT fields when CTAEXPECTNAT absent

ctnetlinkallocexpect() allocates expectations from a non-zeroing slab cache via nfctexpectalloc(). When CTAEXPECTNAT is not present in the netlink message, savedaddr and savedproto are never initialized. Stale data from a previous slab occupant can then be dumped to userspace by ctnetlinkexpdumpexpect(), which checks these fields to decide whether to emit CTAEXPECTNAT.

The safe sibling nfctexpect_init(), used by the packet path, explicitly zeroes these fields.

Zero savedaddr, savedproto and dir in the else branch, guarded by ISENABLED(CONFIGNF_NAT) since these fields only exist when NAT is enabled.

Confirmed by priming the expect slab with NAT-bearing expectations, freeing them, creating a new expectation without CTAEXPECTNAT, and observing that the ctnetlink dump emits a spurious CTAEXPECTNAT containing stale data from the prior allocation.