Out-of-bounds Read in Linux

CVE-2026-46033

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: crypto: authencesn - reject short ahash digests during instance creation authencesn requires either a zero authsize or an authsize of at least 4 bytes because the ESN encrypt/decrypt paths always move 4 bytes of high-order sequence number data at the end of the authenticated data. While crypto_authenc_esn_setauthsize() already rejects explicit non-zero authsizes in the range 1..3, crypto_authenc_esn_create() still copied auth->digestsize into inst->alg.maxauthsize without validating it. The AEAD core then initialized the tfm's default authsize from that value. As a result, selecting an ahash with digest size 1..3, such as cbcmac(cipher_null), exposed authencesn instances whose default authsize was invalid even though setauthsize() would have rejected the same value. AF_ALG could then trigger the ESN tail handling with a too-short tag and hit an out-of-bounds access. Reject authencesn instances whose ahash digest size is in the invalid non-zero range 1..3 so that no tfm can inherit an unsupported default authsize.

Vulnerability class: Buffer Overflow

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 7.1 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.002 (6.1th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 6th percentile — 6.1% 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-2026-46033: 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 6.18.27, 5.15.209, f15f05b0a5de667c821a9727c33bce9d1d9b26dd
  • Linux Kernel — versions 7.1

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-46033?
CVE-2026-46033 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux, classified under Out-of-bounds Read. CVSS score: 7.1/10. Published 2026-05-27.
How severe is CVE-2026-46033?
High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.1 out of 10.