"SegmentSmack" Linux Network Bug Could Lead To Remote Denial of Service

The latest high profile Linux kernel vulnerability has been dubbed "SegmentSmack" and could result in a remote denial of service attack.

With the Linux 4.9 and newer, the kernel can be forced to make expensive calls for every incoming network packet that in turn can lead to the denial of service. Any malicious actor would just need to send specially modified packets within ongoing TCP sessions and implies an open port on the system for attacking. Also lessening the likelihood of attack is the need for having a two-way TCP session.

CVE-2018-5390 / SegmentSmack will obviously require a kernel fix to address this networking code vulnerability but as of writing has not yet reached its way to the mainline kernel.

More details on the SegmentSmack vulnerability can be found via the Red Hat security advisory.