CVE-2026-46243

Published Jun 1, 2026

Last updated 4 days ago

CVSS high 7.1
Linux Kernel
CIFS
SMB Client

Overview

AI description

Automated description summarized from trusted sources.

CVE-2026-46243, dubbed "CIFSwitch," is a local privilege escalation vulnerability found in the Linux kernel's Common Internet File System (CIFS) client implementation. The flaw allows an unprivileged local user to forge `cifs.spnego` key descriptions. These descriptions, which typically contain authority-bearing fields like `pid`, `uid`, and `creduid`, are usually treated by the `cifs.upcall` helper as originating from the kernel. However, userspace can also create keys of this type, enabling an attacker to supply these fields without CIFS origin. The vulnerability arises because the kernel's CIFS subsystem fails to verify that `cifs.spnego` key requests originate from the kernel's CIFS client. This allows an unprivileged user to create a forged `cifs.spnego` request, triggering the normal authentication workflow and causing the root-privileged `cifs.upcall` helper to trust attacker-controlled data.

Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: smb: client: reject userspace cifs.spnego descriptions cifs.spnego key descriptions contain authority-bearing fields such as pid, uid, creduid, and upcall_target that cifs.upcall treats as kernel-originating inputs. However, userspace can also create keys of this type through request_key(2) or add_key(2), allowing those fields to be supplied without CIFS origin. Only accept cifs.spnego descriptions while CIFS is using its private spnego_cred to request the key.
Source
416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67
NVD status
Analyzed
Products
linux_kernel

Risk scores

CVSS 3.1

Type
Secondary
Base score
7.1
Impact score
5.2
Exploitability score
1.8
Vector string
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:N
Severity
HIGH

Weaknesses

nvd@nist.gov
NVD-CWE-noinfo
134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0
CWE-20

Social media

Hype score
Not currently trending

Configurations

  1. In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: coresight: tmc-etr: Fix race condition between sysfs and perf mode When trying to run perf and sysfs mode simultaneously, the WARN_ON() in tmc_etr_enable_hw() is triggered sometimes: WARNING: CPU: 42 PID: 3911571 at drivers/hwtracing/coresight/coresight-tmc-etr.c:1060 tmc_etr_enable_hw+0xc0/0xd8 [coresight_tmc] [..snip..] Call trace: tmc_etr_enable_hw+0xc0/0xd8 [coresight_tmc] (P) tmc_enable_etr_sink+0x11c/0x250 [coresight_tmc] (L) tmc_enable_etr_sink+0x11c/0x250 [coresight_tmc] coresight_enable_path+0x1c8/0x218 [coresight] coresight_enable_sysfs+0xa4/0x228 [coresight] enable_source_store+0x58/0xa8 [coresight] dev_attr_store+0x20/0x40 sysfs_kf_write+0x4c/0x68 kernfs_fop_write_iter+0x120/0x1b8 vfs_write+0x2c8/0x388 ksys_write+0x74/0x108 __arm64_sys_write+0x24/0x38 el0_svc_common.constprop.0+0x64/0x148 do_el0_svc+0x24/0x38 el0_svc+0x3c/0x130 el0t_64_sync_handler+0xc8/0xd0 el0t_64_sync+0x1ac/0x1b0 ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]--- Since the enablement of sysfs mode is separeted into two critical regions, one for sysfs buffer allocation and another for hardware enablement, it's possible to race with the perf mode. Fix this by double check whether the perf mode's been used before enabling the hardware in sysfs mode. mode: [sysfs mode] [perf mode] tmc_etr_get_sysfs_buffer() spin_lock(&drvdata->spinlock) [sysfs buffer allocation] spin_unlock(&drvdata->spinlock) spin_lock(&drvdata->spinlock) tmc_etr_enable_hw() drvdata->etr_buf = etr_perf->etr_buf spin_unlock(&drvdata->spinlock) spin_lock(&drvdata->spinlock) tmc_etr_enable_hw() WARN_ON(drvdata->etr_buf) // WARN sicne etr_buf initialized at the perf side spin_unlock(&drvdata->spinlock) With this fix, we retain the check for CS_MODE_PERF in get_etr_sysfs_buf. This ensures we verify whether the perf mode's already running before we actually allocate the buffer. Then we can save the time of allocating/freeing the sysfs buffer if race with the perf mode.CVE-2026-46272