Buffer overflow in Linux

CVE-2026-31786

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: Buffer overflow in drivers/xen/sys-hypervisor.c The build id returned by HYPERVISOR_xen_version(XENVER_build_id) is neither NUL terminated nor a string. The first causes a buffer overflow as sprintf in buildid_show will read and copy till it finds a NUL. 00000000 f4 91 51 f4 dd 38 9e 9d 65 47 52 eb 10 71 db 50 |..Q..8..eGR..q.P| 00000010 b9 a8 01 42 6f 2e 32 |...Bo.2| 00000017 So use a memcpy instead of sprintf to have the correct value: 00000000 f4 91 51 f4 dd 00 9e 9d 65 47 52 eb 10 71 db 50 |..Q.....eGR..q.P| 00000010 b9 a8 01 42 |...B| 00000014 (the above have a hack to embed a zero inside and check it's returned correctly). This is XSA-485 / CVE-2026-31786

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 (10.0th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 10th percentile — 10.0% 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-2026-31786: held from 0.002 to 0.002.

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

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-31786?
CVE-2026-31786 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux, classified under Out-of-bounds Write. CVSS score: 7.8/10. Published 2026-04-30.
How severe is CVE-2026-31786?
High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.8 out of 10.