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Fencer Vulns
high 7.8

CVE-2026-31516 json

xfrm: prevent policy_hthresh.work from racing with netns teardown

published 2026-04-22 6 mo ago modified 2026-10-19 20 d ago also EUVD-2026-24900

cvss
7.8
version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.1%
EPSS 0.1% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 0%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

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

xfrm: prevent policy_hthresh.work from racing with netns teardown

A XFRM_MSG_NEWSPDINFO request can queue the per-net work item policy_hthresh.work onto the system workqueue.

The queued callback, xfrm_hash_rebuild(), retrieves the enclosing struct net via container_of(). If the net namespace is torn down before that work runs, the associated struct net may already have been freed, and xfrm_hash_rebuild() may then dereference stale memory.

xfrm_policy_fini() already flushes policy_hash_work during teardown, but it does not synchronize policy_hthresh.work.

Synchronize policy_hthresh.work in xfrm_policy_fini() as well, so the queued work cannot outlive the net namespace teardown and access a freed struct net.

Patch / fix

  • Linux Linux 6.12.80, 6.18.21, 6.19.11, 7.0
  • linux Debian 13 6.12.85-1
  • linux Debian 14 6.19.11-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-31516

  • linux Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-136.136
  • linux-aws Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1061.64
  • linux-gcp Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1064.72
  • linux-gke Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1059.67
  • linux-ibm Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1061.62
  • linux-azure Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1063.71
  • linux-gkeop Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1046.50
  • linux-raspi Ubuntu 24.04 LTS 6.8.0-1061.65

ubuntu advisories UBUNTU-CVE-2026-31516

Ubuntu security data © Canonical Ltd., from https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-security-notices via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

  • kernel-rt Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-48.1
  • kernel-source-rt Linux Micro 6.1, Linux Micro 6.0 6.4.0-48.1
  • kernel-rt Real Time Module 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.7.59.2
  • kernel-syms-rt Real Time Module 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.7.59.1
  • kernel-source-rt Real Time Module 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.7.59.2
  • kernel-64kb SLE Module for Basesystem 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.60.1
  • kernel-syms SLE Module for Development Tools 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.60.1
  • kernel-azure SLE Module for Public Cloud 15 SP7 6.4.0-150700.53.60.1

suse advisories SUSE-SU-2026:22433-1SUSE-SU-2026:22458-1SUSE-SU-2026:2591-1SUSE-SU-2026:2482-1SUSE-SU-2026:2450-1SUSE-SU-2026:22108-1

Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2026-31516 updated cvss 6.4

kernel: xfrm: prevent policy_hthresh.work from racing with netns teardown

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 perf, kernel, python-perf, kernel-kdump, kernel-firmware, kernel-bootwrapper, +1 more
    affected: no fix planned “Out of support scope”
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, python-perf, kernel-kdump, +8 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 perf, kernel, bpftool, kernel-rt, kernel-core, kernel-tools, +29 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 rv, perf, rtla, kernel, bpftool, libperf, +83 more Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 kernel
    affected: no fix available “Fix deferred”

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
total
Assessed
24 d ago

Exploit prediction

0.10% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 0% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 3.1 7.8 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H

Affected products

  • Linux Linux

Classification

Weakness
  • CWE-416 Use After Free
  • CWE-362 Concurrent Execution using Shared Resource with Improper Synchronization
Technology feeds

References

Sources

Fencer Vulns keeps one entry per vulnerability: the CVE id wins, then GHSA, and records that alias each other are merged, except that two CVEs always keep separate entries. The same data is available as JSON.