Speed is part of the protection
In cyber security, the period between the moment a vulnerability becomes known and the moment it is fixed is when attackers have their chance. That window is getting shorter: in this case, an AI model was able to write a working attack for the flaw. The faster a fix reaches every system, the less room an attacker has.
That is why we do not want our customers to depend on someone else’s release schedule. At the time of writing, Ubuntu and Red Hat Enterprise Linux, two of the most widely used Linux distributions, had not yet released a fix.
How we did it
- We control our own platform. AXS Guard runs on an operating system that we build and maintain ourselves, so we could act without waiting for a third-party vendor
- We acted immediately. Our engineers integrated the fix, tested it and rolled it out to all AXS Guard appliances on the morning of 30 October 2026
- We informed administrators. Every AXS Guard administrator received an e-mail with the details of the patch and what to do
- We made sure no one is left behind. The patch is activated by a reboot. Administrators can choose the moment themselves; appliances that have not been rebooted will do so automatically on Sunday 1 November 2026 at 02:00, so every customer is protected by the start of the week
For our customers, that means no research, no manual updates and no extra work.
What was the vulnerability?
The flaw, tracked as CVE-2026-98432, sits in the part of the Linux kernel that sets up network connections. It has been present since Linux 4.4, so it affects a large number of servers and appliances worldwide. The Linux kernel’s security team rates it 9.8 out of 10, while other vendors score it lower. Under the right conditions, an attacker on the internet could take control of a vulnerable system without a password. As of 29 October, no attacks using the flaw had been reported.
Running other Linux systems?
Check your vendor’s security advisory for CVE-2026-98432 and install a fixed kernel as soon as one is available. Our technical summary at tcp2rootshell.com explains which kernels are affected and how to fix them.