Quick answers
- Is CVE-2026-17523 exploited in the wild?
- No. Junglewise Threat Intelligence has no report of CVE-2026-17523 being exploited in the wild.
- How severe is CVE-2026-17523?
- High severity, with a CVSS score of 7.8, published 27 July 2026.
- Which products and versions are affected?
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 All versions.
- Is there a fix for CVE-2026-17523?
- No fixed version is recorded yet. Check the vendor's advisory in the references below. If you run it, Junglewise drafts a mitigation that fits your setup and applies it once you approve, with senior security engineers behind it.
- How is CVE-2026-17523 attacked?
- It is attacked with local access, in an operating system.
- Am I affected by CVE-2026-17523?
- Check whether you run Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 at an affected version. Junglewise does that check for you around the clock: connect your code, cloud and domains, and it matches new vulnerabilities like this one against what you actually run and tells you when one reaches you.
Technical details
A flaw was discovered in the Linux kernel's Controller Area Network (CAN) Broadcast Manager (BCM) implementation. The vulnerability is classified as an expired pointer dereference (CWE-825) within the bcm_op runtime updates. An unprivileged local attacker can exploit this race condition or improper locking mechanism to trigger arbitrary kernel code execution. While a Proof of Concept (PoC) exists that utilizes unprivileged user namespaces and the kernel-modules-extra package, the underlying vulnerability is reachable without these specific configurations. Successful exploitation results in local privilege escalation (LPE) to root. Fixes involve switching timers to HRTIMER_MODE_SOFT and implementing proper locking for runtime updates.
Affected products
- Red Hat Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 All versions
Timeline
- 2026-07-27: disclosed: Vulnerability reported and published in NVD/Red Hat Bugzilla