Linux cryptographic code flaw offers fast route to root

OSes Linux cryptographic code flaw offers fast route to root Patches land for authencesn flaw enabling local privilege escalation Thomas Claburn Thu 30 Apr 2026 // 00:01 UTC Developers of major Linux distributions have begun shipping patches to address a local privilege escalation (LPE) vulnerability arising from a logic flaw. The newly disclosed LPE, dubbed Copy Fail (CVE-2026-31431), comes from a vulnerability in the Linux kernel's authencesn cryptographic template. "An unprivileged local user can write four controlled bytes into the page cache of any readable file on a Linux system, and use that to gain root," the writeup from security biz Theori explains.

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