CVE-2026-31669

NameCVE-2026-31669
DescriptionIn the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mptcp: fix slab-use-after-free in __inet_lookup_established The ehash table lookups are lockless and rely on SLAB_TYPESAFE_BY_RCU to guarantee socket memory stability during RCU read-side critical sections. Both tcp_prot and tcpv6_prot have their slab caches created with this flag via proto_register(). However, MPTCP's mptcp_subflow_init() copies tcpv6_prot into tcpv6_prot_override during inet_init() (fs_initcall, level 5), before inet6_init() (module_init/device_initcall, level 6) has called proto_register(&tcpv6_prot). At that point, tcpv6_prot.slab is still NULL, so tcpv6_prot_override.slab remains NULL permanently. This causes MPTCP v6 subflow child sockets to be allocated via kmalloc (falling into kmalloc-4k) instead of the TCPv6 slab cache. The kmalloc-4k cache lacks SLAB_TYPESAFE_BY_RCU, so when these sockets are freed without SOCK_RCU_FREE (which is cleared for child sockets by design), the memory can be immediately reused. Concurrent ehash lookups under rcu_read_lock can then access freed memory, triggering a slab-use-after-free in __inet_lookup_established. Fix this by splitting the IPv6-specific initialization out of mptcp_subflow_init() into a new mptcp_subflow_v6_init(), called from mptcp_proto_v6_init() before protocol registration. This ensures tcpv6_prot_override.slab correctly inherits the SLAB_TYPESAFE_BY_RCU slab cache.
SourceCVE (at NVD; CERT, ENISA, LWN, oss-sec, fulldisc, Debian ELTS, Red Hat, Ubuntu, Gentoo, SUSE bugzilla/CVE, GitHub advisories/code/issues, web search, more)

Vulnerable and fixed packages

The table below lists information on source packages.

Source PackageReleaseVersionStatus
linux (PTS)bullseye5.10.223-1fixed
bullseye (security)5.10.251-1fixed
bookworm6.1.159-1vulnerable
bookworm (security)6.1.164-1vulnerable
trixie6.12.73-1vulnerable
trixie (security)6.12.74-2vulnerable
forky6.19.13-1fixed
sid6.19.14-1fixed

The information below is based on the following data on fixed versions.

PackageTypeReleaseFixed VersionUrgencyOriginDebian Bugs
linuxsourcebullseye(not affected)
linuxsource(unstable)6.19.13-1

Notes

[bullseye] - linux <not-affected> (Vulnerable code not present)
https://git.kernel.org/linus/9b55b253907e7431210483519c5ad711a37dafa1 (7.0)

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