VulnerabilityPublished 22 Apr 2026Updated 31 Jul 2026

CVE-2026-31456: Linux kernel · mm/pagewalk: fix race between concurrent split and refault

Affects Linux kernelSource GCVE Database

Not known to be exploited · CVSS 4.7 Medium.

Data as of 26 Oct 2026, 12:55 UTC

CVSS 3.1 base score

4.7Medium

How severe the flaw is on the 0–10 CVSS scale.

EPSS: 0.08% chance of exploitation in 30 days – higher than 0% of CVEsExploit Prediction Scoring System: the likelihood attackers will use this flaw soon.

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Attack Vector: Local
Attack Complexity: High
Privileges Required: Low
User Interaction: None
Scope: Unchanged
Confidentiality: None
Integrity: None
Availability: High

Bold values are the worst case: easiest to exploit or largest impact.

Attack Vector: Local: The vulnerable component is not bound to the network stack and the attacker’s path is via read/write/execute capabilities. Either: the attacker exploits the vulnerability by accessing the target system locally (e.g., keyboard, console), or remotely (e.g., SSH); or the attacker relies on User Interaction by another person to perform actions required to exploit the vulnerability (e.g., tricking a legitimate user into opening a malicious document).
Attack Complexity: High: A successful attack depends on conditions beyond the attacker's control. That is, a successful attack cannot be accomplished at will, but requires the attacker to invest in some measurable amount of effort in preparation or execution against the vulnerable component before a successful attack can be expected. For example, a successful attack may require an attacker to: gather knowledge about the environment in which the vulnerable target/component exists; prepare the target environment to improve exploit reliability; or inject themselves into the logical network path between the target and the resource requested by the victim in order to read and/or modify network communications (e.g., a man in the middle attack).
Privileges Required: Low: The attacker is authorized with (i.e., requires) privileges that provide basic user capabilities that could normally affect only settings and files owned by a user. Alternatively, an attacker with Low privileges may have the ability to cause an impact only to non-sensitive resources.
User Interaction: None: The vulnerable system can be exploited without any interaction from any user.
Scope: Unchanged: An exploited vulnerability can only affect resources managed by the same security authority. In this case, the vulnerable component and the impacted component are either the same, or both are managed by the same security authority.
Confidentiality: None: There is no loss of confidentiality within the impacted component.
Integrity: None: There is no loss of integrity within the impacted component.
Availability: High: There is total loss of availability, resulting in the attacker being able to fully deny access to resources in the impacted component; this loss is either sustained (while the attacker continues to deliver the attack) or persistent (the condition persists even after the attack has completed). Alternatively, the attacker has the ability to deny some availability, but the loss of availability presents a direct, serious consequence to the impacted component (e.g., the attacker cannot disrupt existing connections, but can prevent new connections; the attacker can repeatedly exploit a vulnerability that, in each instance of a successful attack, leaks a only small amount of memory, but after repeated exploitation causes a service to become completely unavailable).

Definitions: FIRST CVSS v3.1 specification.

Exploitation evidence

Disclosed: evidence found.
CVE published 22 Apr 2026
Detectable: no evidence on record.
No public nuclei template indexed
Weaponised: no evidence on record.
No public exploit code indexed in Metasploit or Exploit-DB
Exploited in the wildExploited: no evidence on record.
Not in CISA KEV and no source reports exploitation
Observed by OffSeq MirageSeen by Mirage: no evidence on record.
No attack traffic recorded by OffSeq Mirage sensors

A missing step is not evidence of safety. Sources: cve.org (opens in a new tab), the Metasploit, Exploit-DB and nuclei-templates index as of 26 Oct 2026.

Disclosed: The CVE record is public on cve.org. Its publication is t = 0.
Detectable: A public nuclei template can find exposed instances, for defenders and attackers alike.
Weaponised: Public exploit code exists in Metasploit or Exploit-DB, or CISA SSVC or the CVSS exploit maturity reports a public proof of concept.
Exploited in the wild: CISA KEV lists it, CISA SSVC rates exploitation active, or a source reports attacks.
Observed by OffSeq Mirage: OffSeq Mirage honeypot sensors recorded attack traffic for this CVE, or found exposed hosts without attack traffic.

Moments are spaced evenly, not to scale; a dashed line marks a gap of six months or more. Deltas count from t = 0. Sources that give only a date (CISA KEV, Exploit-DB, or a time of exactly 00:00Z) read “same day” rather than hours. Metasploit modules carry the flaw’s disclosure date, not their release date, and nuclei templates carry no date, so both appear above but not on the timeline.

What to do

Affected software

Product	Affected	Fixed in
Ubuntu 25.10linux`pkg:deb/ubuntu/linux?arch=source&distro=questing`Other threats	Affected 6.14.0-15.15 – 6.17.0-40.40 20 affected builds	Fixed in–
Ubuntu 25.10linux-aws`pkg:deb/ubuntu/linux-aws?arch=source&distro=questing`Other threats	Affected 6.14.0-1005.5 – 6.17.0-1019.19 17 affected builds	Fixed in–
Ubuntu 25.10linux-azure`pkg:deb/ubuntu/linux-azure?arch=source&distro=questing`Other threats	Affected 6.14.0-1004.4 – 6.17.0-1020.20 16 affected builds	Fixed in–
Ubuntu 25.10linux-azure-fde`pkg:deb/ubuntu/linux-azure-fde?arch=source&distro=questing`Other threats	Affected 6.17.0-1003.3 – 6.17.0-1017.17 10 affected builds	Fixed in–
Ubuntu 25.10linux-gcp`pkg:deb/ubuntu/linux-gcp?arch=source&distro=questing`Other threats	Affected 6.14.0-1006.6 – 6.17.0-1020.22 17 affected builds	Fixed in–
Ubuntu 25.10linux-oracle`pkg:deb/ubuntu/linux-oracle?arch=source&distro=questing`Other threats	Affected 6.14.0-1005.5 – 6.17.0-1018.18 16 affected builds	Fixed in–

Check your own hosts for these packages with threat-finder (opens in a new tab), our free open-source scanner.

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mm/pagewalk: fix race between concurrent split and refault The splitting of a PUD entry in walk_pud_range() can race with a concurrent thread refaulting the PUD leaf entry causing it to try walking a PMD range that has disappeared. An example and reproduction of this is to try reading numa_maps of a process while VFIO-PCI is setting up DMA (specifically the vfio_pin_pages_remote call) on a large BAR for that process. This will trigger a kernel BUG: vfio-pci 0000:03:00.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0002) BUG: unable to handle page fault for address: ffffa23980000000 PGD 0 P4D 0 Oops: Oops: 0000 [#1] SMP NOPTI ... RIP: 0010:walk_pgd_range+0x3b5/0x7a0 Code: 8d 43 ff 48 89 44 24 28 4d 89 ce 4d 8d a7 00 00 20 00 48 8b 4c 24 28 49 81 e4 00 00 e0 ff 49 8d 44 24 ff 48 39 c8 4c 0f 43 e3 <49> f7 06 9f ff ff ff 75 3b 48 8b 44 24 20 48 8b 40 28 48 85 c0 74 RSP: 0018:ffffac23e1ecf808 EFLAGS: 00010287 RAX: 00007f44c01fffff RBX: 00007f4500000000 RCX: 00007f44ffffffff RDX: 0000000000000000 RSI: 000ffffffffff000 RDI: ffffffff93378fe0 RBP: ffffac23e1ecf918 R08: 0000000000000004 R09: ffffa23980000000 R10: 0000000000000020 R11: 0000000000000004 R12: 00007f44c0200000 R13: 00007f44c0000000 R14: ffffa23980000000 R15: 00007f44c0000000 FS: 00007fe884739580(0000) GS:ffff9b7d7a9c0000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: ffffa23980000000 CR3: 000000c0650e2005 CR4: 0000000000770ef0 PKRU: 55555554 Call Trace: <TASK> __walk_page_range+0x195/0x1b0 walk_page_vma+0x62/0xc0 show_numa_map+0x12b/0x3b0 seq_read_iter+0x297/0x440 seq_read+0x11d/0x140 vfs_read+0xc2/0x340 ksys_read+0x5f/0xe0 do_syscall_64+0x68/0x130 ? get_page_from_freelist+0x5c2/0x17e0 ? mas_store_prealloc+0x17e/0x360 ? vma_set_page_prot+0x4c/0xa0 ? __alloc_pages_noprof+0x14e/0x2d0 ? __mod_memcg_lruvec_state+0x8d/0x140 ? __lruvec_stat_mod_folio+0x76/0xb0 ? __folio_mod_stat+0x26/0x80 ? do_anonymous_page+0x705/0x900 ? __handle_mm_fault+0xa8d/0x1000 ? __count_memcg_events+0x53/0xf0 ? handle_mm_fault+0xa5/0x360 ? do_user_addr_fault+0x342/0x640 ? arch_exit_to_user_mode_prepare.constprop.0+0x16/0xa0 ? irqentry_exit_to_user_mode+0x24/0x100 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e RIP: 0033:0x7fe88464f47e Code: c0 e9 b6 fe ff ff 50 48 8d 3d be 07 0b 00 e8 69 01 02 00 66 0f 1f 84 00 00 00 00 00 64 8b 04 25 18 00 00 00 85 c0 75 14 0f 05 <48> 3d 00 f0 ff ff 77 5a c3 66 0f 1f 84 00 00 00 00 00 48 83 ec 28 RSP: 002b:00007ffe6cd9a9b8 EFLAGS: 00000246 ORIG_RAX: 0000000000000000 RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 0000000000020000 RCX: 00007fe88464f47e RDX: 0000000000020000 RSI: 00007fe884543000 RDI: 0000000000000003 RBP: 00007fe884543000 R08: 00007fe884542010 R09: 0000000000000000 R10: fffffffffffffbc5 R11: 0000000000000246 R12: 0000000000000000 R13: 0000000000000003 R14: 0000000000020000 R15: 0000000000020000 </TASK> Fix this by validating the PUD entry in walk_pmd_range() using a stable snapshot (pudp_get()). If the PUD is not present or is a leaf, retry the walk via ACTION_AGAIN instead of descending further. This mirrors the retry logic in walk_pte_range(), which lets walk_pmd_range() retry if the PTE is not being got by pte_offset_map_lock().

References

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