What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities
CVE-2026-31533: net/tls: fix use-after-free in -EBUSY error path of tls_do_encryption
- Severity: critical (CVSS 9.8 v3.1)
- Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
- EPSS: 0.4% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
- Public exploit or detection template: none known
- Published: 2026-04-23 · updated 2026-10-19
- Weakness: CWE-416
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net/tls: fix use-after-free in -EBUSY error path of tls_do_encryption The -EBUSY handling in tls_do_encryption(), introduced by commit 859054147318 ("net: tls: handle backlogging of crypto requests"), has a use-after-free due to double cleanup of encrypt_pending and the scatterlist entry. When crypto_aead_encrypt() returns -EBUSY, the request is enqueued to the cryptd backlog and the async callback tls_encrypt_done() will be invoked upon completion. That callback unconditionally restores the scatterlist entry (sge->offset, sge->length) and decrements ctx->encrypt_pending. However, if tls_encrypt_async_wait() returns an error, the synchronous error path in tls_do_encryption() performs the same cleanup again, double-decrementing encrypt_pending and double-restoring the scatterlist. The double-decrement corrupts the encrypt_pending sentinel (initialized to 1), making tls_encrypt_async_wait() permanently skip the wait for pending async callbacks. A subsequent sendmsg can then free the tls_rec via bpf_exec_tx_verdict() while a cryptd callback is still pending, resulting in a use-after-free when the callback fires on the freed record. Fix this by skipping the synchronous cleanup when the -EBUSY async wait returns an error, since the callback has already handled encrypt_pending and sge restoration.
Affected products
- Linux kernel: from 5.15.160 before 5.15.203; from 6.1.84 before 6.1.169; from 6.6.18 before 6.6.135; from 6.7.6 before 6.8; from 6.8.1 before 6.12.82; from 6.13 before 6.18.23 — fixed in 5.15.203, 6.1.169, 6.12.82, 6.18.23, 6.19.13, 6.6.135
How to fix
Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 5.15.203, 6.1.169, 6.12.82, 6.18.23. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.
References
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/02f3ecadb23558bbe068e6504118f1b712d4ece0
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/0e43e0a3c94044acc74b8e0927c27972eb5a59e8
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2694d408b0e595024e0fc1d64ff9db0358580f74
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/414fc5e5a5aff776c150f1b86770e0a25a35df3a
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/5d70eb25b41e9b010828cd12818b06a0c3b04412
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/a9b8b18364fffce4c451e6f6fd218fa4ab646705
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/aa9facde6c5005205874c37db3fd25799d741baf
- https://cert-portal.siemens.com/productcert/html/ssa-019113.html
- https://cert-portal.siemens.com/productcert/html/ssa-082556.html
- https://cert-portal.siemens.com/productcert/html/ssa-457936.html
Get alerted when CVE-2026-31533 or the next vulnerability affects your stack