SOC status:Duty analyst on shift

UK Cyber Defence
VulnerabilityAnalyzed

CVE-2026-31516

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.

HIGH 7.8EPSS 0.10%

Does this matter?

High impact if exploited, but EPSS currently rates exploitation as unlikely (0.10%). Schedule it in the normal patch cycle and watch for a rise in EPSS or a public exploit.

Description

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.

CVSS 3.1
7.8 HIGHCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS
0.10% probability · 1th percentile
CISA KEV
Not listed
Weakness
CWE-362
Affected
linux/linux kernel
Source
416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

Source: NVD record, EPSS from FIRST.org, KEV from CISA. Refreshed daily.