CVE-2026-31429

EUVD-2026-23816
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

net: skb: fix cross-cache free of KFENCE-allocated skb head

SKB_SMALL_HEAD_CACHE_SIZE is intentionally set to a non-power-of-2
value (e.g. 704 on x86_64) to avoid collisions with generic kmalloc
bucket sizes. This ensures that skb_kfree_head() can reliably use
skb_end_offset to distinguish skb heads allocated from
skb_small_head_cache vs. generic kmalloc caches.

However, when KFENCE is enabled, kfence_ksize() returns the exact
requested allocation size instead of the slab bucket size. If a caller
(e.g. bpf_test_init) allocates skb head data via kzalloc() and the
requested size happens to equal SKB_SMALL_HEAD_CACHE_SIZE, then
slab_build_skb() -> ksize() returns that exact value. After subtracting
skb_shared_info overhead, skb_end_offset ends up matching
SKB_SMALL_HEAD_HEADROOM, causing skb_kfree_head() to incorrectly free
the object to skb_small_head_cache instead of back to the original
kmalloc cache, resulting in a slab cross-cache free:

  kmem_cache_free(skbuff_small_head): Wrong slab cache. Expected
  skbuff_small_head but got kmalloc-1k

Fix this by always calling kfree(head) in skb_kfree_head(). This keeps
the free path generic and avoids allocator-specific misclassification
for KFENCE objects.
ProviderTypeBase ScoreAtk. VectorAtk. ComplexityPriv. RequiredVector
NISTPrimary
UNKNOWN
---
Awaiting analysis
This vulnerability is currently awaiting analysis.
Base Score
CVSS 3.x
EPSS Score
Percentile: Unknown
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Debian Product
Codename
linux
bookworm
6.1.159-1
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6.1.164-1
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