Rapid7’s 2026 Global Cybersecurity Summit is now available on-demand.Watch sessions.
Rapid7

vulnerability

Red Hat: CVE-2023-52925: kernel: netfilter: nf_tables: don't fail inserts if duplicate has expired

Severity
5
CVSS
(AV:L/AC:L/Au:S/C:N/I:N/A:C)
Published
Feb 5, 2025
Added
Jul 9, 2025
Modified
Jul 10, 2025

Description

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

netfilter: nf_tables: don't fail inserts if duplicate has expired

nftables selftests fail:
run-tests.sh testcases/sets/0044interval_overlap_0
Expected: 0-2 . 0-3, got:
W: [FAILED] ./testcases/sets/0044interval_overlap_0: got 1

Insertion must ignore duplicate but expired entries.

Moreover, there is a strange asymmetry in nft_pipapo_activate:

It refetches the current element, whereas the other ->activate callbacks
(bitmap, hash, rhash, rbtree) use elem->priv.
Same for .remove: other set implementations take elem->priv,
nft_pipapo_remove fetches elem->priv, then does a relookup,
remove this.

I suspect this was the reason for the change that prompted the
removal of the expired check in pipapo_get() in the first place,
but skipping exired elements there makes no sense to me, this helper
is used for normal get requests, insertions (duplicate check)
and deactivate callback.

In first two cases expired elements must be skipped.

For ->deactivate(), this gets called for DELSETELEM, so it
seems to me that expired elements should be skipped as well, i.e.
delete request should fail with -ENOENT error.

Solution

no-fix-redhat-rpm-package
Title
Rapid7 Labs

2026 Global Threat Landscape Report

The predictive window has collapsed. Exploitation follows disclosure in days. See how attackers are accelerating and how to stay ahead.