Vulnerability in Linux

CVE-2026-68431

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ksmbd: validate minimum PDU size for transform requests The receive path applies the minimum SMB2 PDU size check only when ProtocolId is SMB2_PROTO_NUMBER. A packet carrying SMB2_TRANSFORM_PROTO_NUM bypasses the check even when the negotiated dialect does not provide transform handling. On an SMB 2.1 connection, a short transform packet therefore reaches init_smb2_rsp_hdr(), which interprets the request as a full SMB2 header and reads beyond the request allocation. The copied fields can then be returned to the unauthenticated client. Compression transforms are converted to ordinary SMB2 messages before protocol validation. After that conversion, validate ordinary SMB2 requests against SMB2_MIN_SUPPORTED_PDU_SIZE and require encryption transform requests to contain both a transform header and an SMB2 header. This rejects truncated requests before work allocation.

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 9.1 (Critical). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.005 (40.6th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 41st percentile — 40.6% 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-2026-68431: held from 0.004 to 0.005.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.004 · newest: 0.005 · change: +0.001

Affected products

  • Linux — versions 6.3.8, 368ba06881c395f1c9a7ba22203cf8d78b4addc0, 7.2-rc5

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-68431?
CVE-2026-68431 is a critical-severity vulnerability in Linux. CVSS score: 9.1/10. Published 2026-08-12.
How severe is CVE-2026-68431?
Critical severity. CVSS v3 base score is 9.1 out of 10.