What happened? On October 25, 2026, the National Vulnerability Database published CVE-2026-98432 , a vulnerability in the Linux kernel's IPv4 TCP stack. The flaw is a use-after-free: when a server handles a retransmitted SYN for a connection request, it can read IP options from memory that has already been freed. This can lead to a crash or memory corruption. The Linux kernel fix defers freeing these IP options until after an RCU (read-copy-update) grace period, so no thread can still be...