CVE-2026-94453
Description
Libreswan's pluto daemon has a use-after-free vulnerability when a client connecting using IKE over TCP closes the connection and another packet (retransmit or malicious) is received for the same tuple. IKE state is retained in memory after the client closes the connection, storing a pointer to iface_endpoint inside ike_sa.sa->st_iface_endpoint. Once this invalid pointer is used, the daemon crashes and restarts. This vulnerability can be triggered before the remote peer has authenticated itself. Continued exploitation can lead to a denial of service. Remote code execution could be possible. The IKE over TCP option is not enabled by default; only configurations that contain listen-tcp=yes are affected.
Predictions
Heuristic predictions, AS-IS, for prioritization only.
Mitigations
No mitigations published for this CVE yet.
The vendor-content worker queues fetches as references arrive (check back in a few minutes). Or — if you've already worked around this in production — publish your fix to the community-verified tier.
Propose a mitigation on Community Mitigations published via the community go through AI scoring + 2 human reviewers + 7-day silent objection window before landing here withsource_tier=community-verified.
OS impact
Alpine Fixed 2 releases
| Version | Package | Status | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|---|
| v3.24 | libreswan |
Fixed | 5.3.3-r0 |
| v3.23 | libreswan |
Fixed | 5.3.3-r0 |
References
CWEs
CWE-416
Community-verified mitigations for this CVE will appear above when contributors publish them.
Verify integrity in audit chain (admin only). AS-IS.