CVE intelligence and bounded remediation

CVE-2026-31728 — Linux Linux Kernel security vulnerability

Medium CVSS 4.7

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: usb: gadget: u_ether: Fix race between gether_disconnect and eth_stop A race condition between gether_disconnect() and eth_stop() leads to a NULL pointer dereference. Specifically, if eth_stop() is triggered concurrently while gether_disconnect() is tearing down the endpoints, eth_stop() attempts to access the cleared endpoint descriptor, causing the following NPE: Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference Call trace: __dwc3_gadget_ep_enable+0x60/0x788 dwc3_gadget_ep_enable+0x70/0xe4 usb_ep_enable+0x60/0x15c eth_stop+0xb8/0x108 Because eth_stop() crashes while holding the dev->lock, the thread running gether_disconnect() fails to acquire the same lock and spins forever, resulting in a hardlockup: Core - Debugging Information for Hardlockup core(7) Call trace: queued_spin_lock_slowpath+0x94/0x488 _raw_spin_lock+0x64/0x6c gether_disconnect+0x19c/0x1e8 ncm_set_alt+0x68/0x1a0 composite_setup+0x6a0/0xc50 The root cause is that the clearing of dev->port_usb in gether_disconnect() is delayed until the end of the function. Move the clearing of dev->port_usb to the very beginning of gether_disconnect() while holding…

Severity
Medium
CVSS
4.7 (3.1)
Published
2026-05-01
CISA KEV
Not currently listed
Ecosystem
linux/kernel
Weaknesses
CWE-362

Affected products

  • linux / linux_kernel
  • linux / linux_kernel / 7.0

Showing 2 representative product identities from 13 source matches. Confirm exact affected versions with the linked vendor and NVD evidence.

Matched remediation archetype

Race condition, TOCTOU, and lifecycle synchronization

This catalog composition supplies bounded fallback guidance. Explicitly reviewed curated workflows load with the complete record below.

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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