Cyber Resilience

CVE-2026-31686

Memory Safety in Linux Kernel 4.19 – 6.6.136

Published
27 April 2026
Modified
01 June 2026
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 7.8
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0012 2th percentile
Risk Priority 54 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2026-31686 is a high-severity Double Free (CWE-415) vulnerability in Linux Linux Kernel. Its CVSS base score is 7.8 (High).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Client Execution (T1203); ranked at the 2th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.

The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) and SA-8 (Security and Privacy Engineering Principles) — see the control section below for these in your framework.

EU & UK References

Vulnerability Data

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/kasan: fix double free for kasan pXds kasan_free_pxd() assumes the page table is always struct page aligned. But that's not always the case for all architectures. E.g. In case of…

more

powerpc with 64K pagesize, PUD table (of size 4096) comes from slab cache named pgtable-2^9. Hence instead of page_to_virt(pxd_page()) let's just directly pass the start of the pxd table which is passed as the 1st argument. This fixes the below double free kasan issue seen with PMEM: radix-mmu: Mapped 0x0000047d10000000-0x0000047f90000000 with 2.00 MiB pages ================================================================== BUG: KASAN: double-free in kasan_remove_zero_shadow+0x9c4/0xa20 Free of addr c0000003c38e0000 by task ndctl/2164 CPU: 34 UID: 0 PID: 2164 Comm: ndctl Not tainted 6.19.0-rc1-00048-gea1013c15392 #157 VOLUNTARY Hardware name: IBM,9080-HEX POWER10 (architected) 0x800200 0xf000006 of:IBM,FW1060.00 (NH1060_012) hv:phyp pSeries Call Trace: dump_stack_lvl+0x88/0xc4 (unreliable) print_report+0x214/0x63c kasan_report_invalid_free+0xe4/0x110 check_slab_allocation+0x100/0x150 kmem_cache_free+0x128/0x6e0 kasan_remove_zero_shadow+0x9c4/0xa20 memunmap_pages+0x2b8/0x5c0 devm_action_release+0x54/0x70 release_nodes+0xc8/0x1a0 devres_release_all+0xe0/0x140 device_unbind_cleanup+0x30/0x120 device_release_driver_internal+0x3e4/0x450 unbind_store+0xfc/0x110 drv_attr_store+0x78/0xb0 sysfs_kf_write+0x114/0x140 kernfs_fop_write_iter+0x264/0x3f0 vfs_write+0x3bc/0x7d0 ksys_write+0xa4/0x190 system_call_exception+0x190/0x480 system_call_vectored_common+0x15c/0x2ec ---- interrupt: 3000 at 0x7fff93b3d3f4 NIP: 00007fff93b3d3f4 LR: 00007fff93b3d3f4 CTR: 0000000000000000 REGS: c0000003f1b07e80 TRAP: 3000 Not tainted (6.19.0-rc1-00048-gea1013c15392) MSR: 800000000280f033 <SF,VEC,VSX,EE,PR,FP,ME,IR,DR,RI,LE> CR: 48888208 XER: 00000000 <...> NIP [00007fff93b3d3f4] 0x7fff93b3d3f4 LR [00007fff93b3d3f4] 0x7fff93b3d3f4 ---- interrupt: 3000 The buggy address belongs to the object at c0000003c38e0000 which belongs to the cache pgtable-2^9 of size 4096 The buggy address is located 0 bytes inside of 4096-byte region [c0000003c38e0000, c0000003c38e1000) The buggy address belongs to the physical page: page: refcount:0 mapcount:0 mapping:0000000000000000 index:0x0 pfn:0x3c38c head: order:2 mapcount:0 entire_mapcount:0 nr_pages_mapped:0 pincount:0 memcg:c0000003bfd63e01 flags: 0x63ffff800000040(head|node=6|zone=0|lastcpupid=0x7ffff) page_type: f5(slab) raw: 063ffff800000040 c000000140058980 5deadbeef0000122 0000000000000000 raw: 0000000000000000 0000000080200020 00000000f5000000 c0000003bfd63e01 head: 063ffff800000040 c000000140058980 5deadbeef0000122 0000000000000000 head: 0000000000000000 0000000080200020 00000000f5000000 c0000003bfd63e01 head: 063ffff800000002 c00c000000f0e301 00000000ffffffff 00000000ffffffff head: ffffffffffffffff 0000000000000000 00000000ffffffff 0000000000000004 page dumped because: kasan: bad access detected [ 138.953636] [ T2164] Memory state around the buggy address: [ 138.953643] [ T2164] c0000003c38dff00: fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc [ 138.953652] [ T2164] c0000003c38dff80: fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc [ 138.953661] [ T2164] >c0000003c38e0000: fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc [ 138.953669] [ T2164] ^ [ 138.953675] [ T2164] c0000003c38e0080: fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc [ 138.953684] [ T2164] c0000003c38e0100: fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc fc [ 138.953692] [ T2164] ================================================================== [ 138.953701] [ T2164] Disabling lock debugging due to kernel taint

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques

T1203 Exploitation for Client Execution Execution
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in client applications to execute code.
T1068 Exploitation for Privilege Escalation Privilege Escalation
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to elevate privileges.
T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application Initial Access
Adversaries may attempt to exploit a weakness in an Internet-facing host or system to initially access a network.
T1212 Exploitation for Credential Access Credential Access
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities in an attempt to collect credentials.
T1499 Endpoint Denial of Service Impact
Adversaries may perform Endpoint Denial of Service (DoS) attacks to degrade or block the availability of services to users.
Derived from this CVE’s CWE(s) via the direct CWE→ATT&CK cross-walk.

CVEs Like This One

CVE-2023-52688Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2026-43460Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2023-53596Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2025-38490Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2026-23098Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2024-41046Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2024-53213Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2024-26652Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2026-23162Same product: Linux Linux Kernel
CVE-2026-43097Same product: Linux Linux Kernel

Affected Assets

linux
linux kernel
4.19 — 6.6.136 · 6.7 — 6.12.83 · 6.13 — 6.18.24

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)

Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)
  • 1 hardening rule · 1 OS baseline
Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

Developer testing and evaluation explicitly includes dynamic analysis and fuzzing that locate double-free defects before release.

Security engineering principles can require memory-safe allocation patterns or language features that structurally eliminate double-free opportunities.

Flaw remediation processes require identification and correction of memory-management defects such as double free once discovered.

Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

PR.PS-06 full match
prevents

Secure SDLC practices directly prevent double-free errors via static analysis, safe memory APIs, and testing.

Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI

Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.

finds

Security testing in development can detect double-free conditions before release.

prevents

Secure development life cycle includes memory-safety practices that can prevent double-free bugs.

prevents

Application security requirements can mandate memory-safety rules that reduce double-free risk.

prevents

Secure system architecture and engineering principles can prescribe safe memory-management patterns.

prevents

Secure coding standards directly address proper use of free() and similar functions.

Hardening callouts derived

Configuration rules from DISA STIG baselines that bear on weaknesses of the type cited by this CVE. Each rule is shown with the relationship its mapping actually records, against the CWE it was authored against. Derived via CVE→CWE over `controls_xwalks` (authoritative rows only; rows rated `none` are excluded).

Oracle Linux 8 (1 rule)
  • V-248590 OL 8 must clear the page allocator to prevent use-after-free attacks. prevents CWE-415

References