An issue was discovered in net/ipv6/ip6mr.c in the Linux kernel before 4.11. By setting a specific socket option, an attacker can control a pointer in kernel land and cause an inet_csk_listen_stop general protection fault, or potentially execute arbitrary code under certain circumstances. The issue can be triggered as root (e.g., inside a default LXC container or with the CAP_NET_ADMIN capability) or after namespace unsharing. This occurs because sk_type and protocol are not checked in the appropriate part of the ip6_mroute_* functions. NOTE: this affects Linux distributions that use 4.9.x longterm kernels before 4.9.187.
The product receives input or data, but it does not validate or incorrectly validates that the input has the properties that are required to process the data safely and correctly.