CVE-2026-31428: Linux Kernel

Medium severity, CVSS 5.5. EPSS: 0.2% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: netfilter: nfnetlink_log: fix uninitialized padding leak in NFULA_PAYLOAD __build_packet_message() manually constructs the NFULA_PAYLOAD netlink attribute using skb_put() and skb_copy_bits(), bypassing the standard nla_reserve()/nla_put() helpers. While nla_total_size(data_len) bytes are allocated (including NLA alignment padding), only data_len bytes of actual packet data are copied. The trailing nla_padlen(data_len) bytes (1-3 when data_len is not 4-byte aligned) are never initialized, leaking stale heap contents to userspace via the NFLOG netlink socket. Replace the manual attribute construction with nla_reserve(), which handles the tailroom check, header setup, and padding zeroing via __nla_reserve(). The subsequent skb_copy_bits() fills in the payload data on top of the properly initialized attribute.

Affected products

• Linux Linux Kernel: from 2.6.24, before 5.10.253 (fixed in 5.10.253); from 5.11, before 5.15.203 (fixed in 5.15.203); from 5.16, before 6.1.168 (fixed in 6.1.168); from 6.2, before 6.6.131 (fixed in 6.6.131); from 6.7, before 6.12.80 (fixed in 6.12.80); from 6.13, before 6.18.21 (fixed in 6.18.21); …

Published 2026-04-13. Last modified 2026-07-14.