Buffer overflow in Linux

CVE-2026-31696

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: rxrpc: Fix missing validation of ticket length in non-XDR key preparsing In rxrpc_preparse(), there are two paths for parsing key payloads: the XDR path (for large payloads) and the non-XDR path (for payloads <= 28 bytes). While the XDR path (rxrpc_preparse_xdr_rxkad()) correctly validates the ticket length against AFSTOKEN_RK_TIX_MAX, the non-XDR path fails to do so. This allows an unprivileged user to provide a very large ticket length. When this key is later read via rxrpc_read(), the total token size (toksize) calculation results in a value that exceeds AFSTOKEN_LENGTH_MAX, triggering a WARN_ON(). [ 2001.302904] WARNING: CPU: 2 PID: 2108 at net/rxrpc/key.c:778 rxrpc_read+0x109/0x5c0 [rxrpc] Fix this by adding a check in the non-XDR parsing path of rxrpc_preparse() to ensure the ticket length does not exceed AFSTOKEN_RK_TIX_MAX, bringing it into parity with the XDR parsing logic.

Vulnerability class: Buffer Overflow

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 7.8 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.002 (6.4th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 6th percentile — 6.4% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS trend (30 days)EPSS over the last 30 days for CVE-2026-31696: held from 0.001 to 0.002.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.001 · newest: 0.002 · change: +0.000

Affected products

  • Linux — versions 8a7a3eb4ddbe7c7e639170a64adede7cbd5a9247, 0, 5.10.258
  • Linux Kernel — versions 7.1

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-31696?
CVE-2026-31696 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux, classified under Out-of-bounds Write. CVSS score: 7.8/10. Published 2026-05-01.
How severe is CVE-2026-31696?
High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.8 out of 10.