Impact
The vulnerability is an integer division by zero in the tipc_sk_filter_connect function of the Linux kernel's TIPC socket module. When the socket option TIPC_CONN_TIMEOUT is set to any value from 0 to 3 via setsockopt, the retry path for a rejected SYN calculates delay %= (tsk->conn_timeout / 4);. Since the division yields zero, the modulo operation triggers a divide‑by‑zero exception, causing a kernel oops and potentially a panic. This results in a denial of service by crashing the kernel.
Affected Systems
The weakness affects all Linux kernel builds that include the TIPC socket module and have not applied the fix that clamps conn_timeout to a minimum of four. No specific distribution or version is singled out; any kernel incorporating the current TIPC implementation before the patch is vulnerable.
Risk and Exploitability
The CVSS score is 7.0, indicating high severity because a kernel crash can bring a system down. EPSS is not available, and the issue is not in CISA's KEV catalog. Attackers can trigger the crash by creating a local TIPC socket and calling setsockopt to set TIPC_CONN_TIMEOUT to a low value. The likely attack vector is local, as it requires only execution privileges to create a socket, which does not require network connectivity. Based on the description, it is inferred that no network‑level privilege escalation is needed to exploit the flaw; a local user can induce the crash.
OpenCVE Enrichment