What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-31692: rtnetlink: add missing netlink_ns_capable() check for peer netns

• Severity: medium (CVSS 5.5 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.1% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2026-04-30 · updated 2026-06-17

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: rtnetlink: add missing netlink_ns_capable() check for peer netns rtnl_newlink() lacks a CAP_NET_ADMIN capability check on the peer network namespace when creating paired devices (veth, vxcan, netkit). This allows an unprivileged user with a user namespace to create interfaces in arbitrary network namespaces, including init_net. Add a netlink_ns_capable() check for CAP_NET_ADMIN in the peer namespace before allowing device creation to proceed.

Affected products

• Linux kernel: from 2.6.33 before 6.18.24; from 6.19 before 6.19.14; 7.0-rc1, 7.0-rc2, 7.0-rc3, 7.0-rc4, 7.0-rc5, 7.0-rc6 (+1) — fixed in 6.18.24, 6.19.14

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 6.18.24, 6.19.14. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/0975b64ffb34560042090a5986c3a02e6c80f36f
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/7b735ef81286007794a227ce2539419479c02a5f
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/d04cc16d3624218a5458b2b664ae431f1b3b334d

Get alerted when CVE-2026-31692 or the next vulnerability affects your stack