CVE-2026-46302: selinux: allow multiple opens of /sys/fs/selinux/policy

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: 2026-06-08 · updated 2026-10-30

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: selinux: allow multiple opens of /sys/fs/selinux/policy Currently there can only be a single open of /sys/fs/selinux/policy at any time. This allows any process to block any other process from reading the kernel policy. The original motivation seems to have been a mix of preventing an inconsistent view of the policy size and preventing userspace from allocating kernel memory without bound, but this is arguably equally bad. Eliminate the policy_opened flag and shrink the critical section that the policy mutex is held. While we are making changes here, drop a couple of extraneous BUG_ONs.

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 2.6.37 before 7.0.7; 7.1-rc1, 7.1-rc2 — fixed in 7.0.7
Linux: 2.6.37 — fixed in 7.1

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 7.0.7; Linux 7.1. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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