Vulnerability Database

401,687

Total vulnerabilities in the database

CVE-2026-53003 — linux / linux_kernel

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

pppoe: drop PFC frames

RFC 2516 Section 7 states that Protocol Field Compression (PFC) is NOT RECOMMENDED for PPPoE. In practice, pppd does not support negotiating PFC for PPPoE sessions, and the current PPPoE driver assumes an uncompressed (2-byte) protocol field. However, the generic PPP layer function ppp_input() is not aware of the negotiation result, and still accepts PFC frames.

If a peer with a broken implementation or an attacker sends a frame with a compressed (1-byte) protocol field, the subsequent PPP payload is shifted by one byte. This causes the network header to be 4-byte misaligned, which may trigger unaligned access exceptions on some architectures.

To reduce the attack surface, drop PPPoE PFC frames. Introduce ppp_skb_is_compressed_proto() helper function to be used in both ppp_generic.c and pppoe.c to avoid open-coding.

  • Published: Jun 24, 2026
  • Updated: Oct 17, 2026
  • CVE: CVE-2026-53003
  • Severity: High
  • Exploit:
  • CISA KEV:

CVSS v3:

  • Severity: High
  • Score: 7.5
  • AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

No CWE or OWASP classifications available.

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Frequently Asked Questions

A security vulnerability is a weakness in software, hardware, or configuration that can be exploited to compromise confidentiality, integrity, or availability. Many vulnerabilities are tracked as CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures), which provide a standardized identifier so teams can coordinate patching, mitigation, and risk assessment across tools and vendors.

CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) estimates technical severity, but it doesn't automatically equal business risk. Prioritize using context like internet exposure, affected asset criticality, known exploitation (proof-of-concept or in-the-wild), and whether compensating controls exist. A "Medium" CVSS on an exposed, production system can be more urgent than a "Critical" on an isolated, non-production host.

A vulnerability is the underlying weakness. An exploit is the method or code used to take advantage of it. A zero-day is a vulnerability that is unknown to the vendor or has no publicly available fix when attackers begin using it. In practice, risk increases sharply when exploitation becomes reliable or widespread.

Recurring findings usually come from incomplete Asset Discovery, inconsistent patch management, inherited images, and configuration drift. In modern environments, you also need to watch the software supply chain: dependencies, containers, build pipelines, and third-party services can reintroduce the same weakness even after you patch a single host. Unknown or unmanaged assets (often called Shadow IT) are a common reason the same issues resurface.

Use a simple, repeatable triage model: focus first on externally exposed assets, high-value systems (identity, VPN, email, production), vulnerabilities with known exploits, and issues that enable remote code execution or privilege escalation. Then enforce patch SLAs and track progress using consistent metrics so remediation is steady, not reactive.

SynScan combines attack surface monitoring and continuous security auditing to keep your inventory current, flag high-impact vulnerabilities early, and help you turn raw findings into a practical remediation plan.