CVE-2026-31516: Linux Kernel

High severity, CVSS 7.8. EPSS: 0.1% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

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.

Affected products

• Linux Linux Kernel: from 3.18.1, before 6.12.80 (fixed in 6.12.80); from 6.13, before 6.18.21 (fixed in 6.18.21); from 6.19, before 6.19.11 (fixed in 6.19.11); version 3.18 only; version 7.0 only

Published 2026-04-22. Last modified 2026-06-17.