CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2026-31509 — Linux Linux Kernel security vulnerability

Medium CVSS 5.5

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: nfc: nci: fix circular locking dependency in nci_close_device nci_close_device() flushes rx_wq and tx_wq while holding req_lock. This causes a circular locking dependency because nci_rx_work() running on rx_wq can end up taking req_lock too: nci_rx_work -> nci_rx_data_packet -> nci_data_exchange_complete -> __sk_destruct -> rawsock_destruct -> nfc_deactivate_target -> nci_deactivate_target -> nci_request -> mutex_lock(&ndev->req_lock) Move the flush of rx_wq after req_lock has been released. This should safe (I think) because NCI_UP has already been cleared and the transport is closed, so the work will see it and return -ENETDOWN. NIPA has been hitting this running the nci selftest with a debug kernel on roughly 4% of the runs.

Severity
Medium
CVSS
5.5 (3.1)
Published
2026-04-22
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
linux/kernel
Weaknesses
CWE-667

Affected products

  • linux / linux_kernel
  • linux / linux_kernel / 3.2
  • linux / linux_kernel / 7.0

Showing 3 representative product identities from 15 source matches. Confirm exact affected versions with the linked vendor and NVD evidence.

Matched remediation archetype

Race condition, TOCTOU, and lifecycle synchronization

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Check exposure

  • Map concurrent actors, shared state, lock boundaries, signals, callbacks, retries, and check-then-use sequences in the affected path.
  • Determine whether untrusted users can influence timing, object names, filesystem state, or repeated state transitions.
  • Identify clustered and multi-process behavior that repository-local tests may not represent.

Remediate safely

  • Make the sensitive state transition atomic or protect it with a consistently ordered synchronization primitive.
  • Perform authorization and invariant checks on the same authoritative object and transaction used for the operation.
  • Use unique private resources, safe ownership transfer, and idempotent operations; add deterministic concurrency regression tests.

Authoritative sources

Complete CVE record and remediation plan

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