CVE-2025-71113: crypto: af_alg - zero initialize memory allocated via sock_kmalloc

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2025-71113 is a medium (CVSS 5.5) Use of Uninitialized Resource vulnerability in linux. EPSS estimates a 0.15% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 4.2% of scored vulnerabilities.

Timeline

1. 14-01-2026
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 19-10-2026
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: crypto: af_alg - zero initialize memory allocated via sock_kmalloc Several crypto user API contexts and requests allocated with sock_kmalloc() were left uninitialized, relying on callers to set fields explicitly. This resulted in the use of uninitialized data in certain error paths or when new fields are added in the future. The ACVP patches also contain two user-space interface files: algif_kpp.c and algif_akcipher.c. These too rely on proper initialization of their context structures. A particular issue has been observed with the newly added 'inflight' variable introduced in af_alg_ctx by commit: 67b164a871af ("crypto: af_alg - Disallow multiple in-flight AIO requests") Because the context is not memset to zero after allocation, the inflight variable has contained garbage values. As a result, af_alg_alloc_areq() has incorrectly returned -EBUSY randomly when the garbage value was interpreted as true: https://github.com/gregkh/linux/blame/master/crypto/af_alg.c#L1209 The check directly tests ctx->inflight without explicitly comparing against true/false. Since inflight is only ever set to true or false later, an uninitialized value has triggered -EBUSY failures. Zero-initializing memory allocated with sock_kmalloc() ensures inflight and other fields start in a known state, removing random issues caused by uninitialized data.

• CWE-908Use of Uninitialized ResourceThe product uses or accesses a resource that has not been initialized.
• CWE-119Improper Restriction of Operations within the Bounds of a Memory BufferThe product performs operations on a memory buffer, but it reads from or writes to a memory location outside the buffer's intended boundary.