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Message-ID: <cfe5a1f5-f7fe-44a5-8af9-8e4c8d68b3d7@terraraq.uk>
Date: Sat, 2 May 2026 20:13:48 +0100
From: Richard Kettlewell <rjk@...raraq.uk>
To: oss-security@...ts.openwall.com
Subject: Re: CVE-2026-31431: CopyFail: linux local privilege
scalation
On 01/05/2026 16:30, Demi Marie Obenour wrote:
> On 4/30/26 03:19, Eric Biggers wrote:
>> But I also hope this finally provides some more impetus for AF_ALG to be
>> deprecated and removed. It's a massive, largely pointless attack
>> surface which has been causing problems, including regular CVEs, ever
>> since it was added to the kernel in 2010. And of course it's gotten
>> even worse lately, with LLMs now being able to find the bugs.
>>
>> Userspace crypto libraries exist. There's no need to escalate to kernel
>> mode just to do some math.
>
> The only reason I can think of to keep it is for embedded systems
> with weak CPUs and crypto accelerators that are actually worth using.
> However, those seem to be very rare outside of things like routers,
> which run specialized distros like OpenWRT. Even when the accelerator
> exists and is worth using, AF_ALG is certainly not an efficient way
> to access it.
I have that use case, although fortunately it's in a context where
splice() is disabled. But the requirement is for access to the SoC's
accelerator - the interface doesn't need to be via AF_ALG in particular,
it doesn't have to offer software crypto (and it might be better if it
didn't), and it needn't be independent of the specific hardware
(although in the bigger picture it'd be a shame if it wasn't).
ttfn/rjk
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