Linux kernel vulnerabilities allow local privilege escalation

Multiple vulnerabilities in the Linux kernel have been identified that allow for local privilege escalation, enabling unauthorized users to gain root access.

One set of vulnerabilities, known as ‘Copy Fail’ (CVE-2026-31431) and ‘DirtyFrag’, involves page cache corruption bugs. ‘Copy Fail’ has been reported as exploited in the wild and is included in CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog. These flaws allow attackers to manipulate the in-memory view of setuid binaries or system files like /etc/passwd. ‘DirtyFrag’ extends these risks to the networking stack, potentially bypassing certain mitigations applied to ‘Copy Fail’.

Separately, a flaw identified as CVE-2026-43502, dubbed ‘ZcopyReaper’ by researchers at NebuSec, affects the Reliable Datagram Sockets (RDS) subsystem. This bug stems from a cleanup error in the zero-copy send path, which can lead to local privilege escalation. Researchers demonstrated the exploit on an openSUSE kernel, noting that the issue has existed since Linux version 4.17 and was addressed in mainline release 7.1-rc3.