Medium exploit reference

CVE-2026-31890 — Inspektor Gadget: Tracing Denial of Service via Event Flooding

Inspektor Gadget is a set of tools and framework for data collection and system inspection on Kubernetes clusters and Linux hosts using eBPF. Prior to 0.50.1, in a situation where the ring-buffer of a gadget is – incidentally or maliciously – already full, the gadget will silently drop events. The include/gadget/buffer.h file contains definitions for the Buffer API that gadgets can use to, among the other things, transfer data from eBPF programs to userspace. For hosts running a modern enough Linux kernel (>= 5.8), this transfer mechanism is based on ring-buffers. The size of the ring-buffer for the gadgets is hard-coded to 256KB. When a gadget_reserve_buf fails because of insufficient space, the gadget silently cleans up without producing an alert. The lost count reported by the eBPF operator, when using ring-buffers – the modern choice – is hardcoded to zero. The vulnerability can be used by a malicious event source (e.g. a compromised container) to cause a Denial Of Service, forcing the system to drop events coming from other containers (or the same container). This vulnerability is fixed in 0.50.1.

Published Mar 12, 2026 · Updated Oct 13, 2026 · Sources: NIST National Vulnerability Database, CVE Program (cve.org) e CISA ADP · CNA: GitHub_M

Low

Who exploits it and how urgent it is

A 0–100 score combining confirmed exploitation, ransomware and APT use, public exploits, EPSS and severity.

No exploitation signal in the sources consulted so far.

How the score was calculated

EPSS 0.2% (30-day exploitation probability)+1
Technical severity (medium)+3
CISA SSVC: exploitation "poc"+5

The score orders the patch queue; it does not replace your asset context (internet exposure, criticality, compensating controls).

Triage

Is it exploited, how likely is exploitation, what does it touch, and how severe do the sources call it.

Exploitation

Not confirmed

Not in CISA KEV — an absence of record, not proof it is unexploited.

EPSS FIRST

0.15%

ahead of 4% of scored CVEs · Oct 14, 2026

Affects

Inspektor-gadget

Inspektor-gadget and 1 more

CVSS base

5.5

Medium · 3 source(s)

CISA SSVC assessment CISA

Three decision points CISA publishes for the CVEs it assesses (SSVC 2.0.3). A stakeholder decision, not a severity score.

Exploitation

Proof of concept

none · proof-of-concept · active

Automatable

can an attacker script the kill-chain steps

Technical impact

Partial

partial · total control of the vulnerable component

Remediation

Fixes and mitigations documented by the sources — linked to the original advisory.

No fix documented by the sources we poll. That does not mean none exists: check the vendor advisory.

First 24 hours

Ordered from the record’s own fields — exposure first, because you cannot patch what you have not found. A rule-generated starting point.

Identify exposed assets running the affected vendor/product/version combinations (Inspektor-gadget Inspektor-gadget, Linuxfoundation Inspektor Gadget).
No fix documented in the sources: reduce exposure and monitor the vendor advisory.
Search available logs for exploit probes, errors and authentication anomalies.

Affected scope

Vendor, product and versions as the sources word them.

Vendor	Product	Versions	Status	Source
Inspektor-gadget	Inspektor-gadget	version < 0.50.1	Vulnerable	CVE Program (cve.org) e CISA ADP
Linuxfoundation	Inspektor Gadget	< 0.50.1	Vulnerable	NIST National Vulnerability Database

Attack characteristics

The CVSS vector, decoded. It describes the attack, not your exposure to it.

Attack vector

Local

Attack complexity

Low

Privileges required

Low

User interaction

None

Scope

Unchanged

Confidentiality

None

Integrity

None

Availability

High

Every base score collected

Sources score independently and may disagree; each row says who scored it and under which version.

Score	Version	Severity	Expl.	Impact	Scored by
4.8	CVSS 4.0	Medium	—	—	security-advisories@github.com via NIST National Vulnerability Database
4.8	CVSS 4.0	Medium	—	—	GitHub_M via CVE Program (cve.org) e CISA ADP
5.5	CVSS 3.1	Medium	1.8	3.6	nvd@nist.gov via NIST National Vulnerability Database

CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H (score shown at the top: nvd@nist.gov)

Weakness MITRE

Weakness class according to MITRE’s CWE catalog.

CWE-223

Other CVEs with this weakness →

EPSS over time FIRST

Oct 13, 2026 → Oct 14, 2026 · 2 reading(s) · max 0.15%

Detection

Read off the CVSS vector and the weakness class. Starting points, not tested rules.

Local/physical vector: focus on endpoint telemetry (EDR) from affected hosts.

endpoint telemetry (EDR)

Timeline

What happened to this CVE, newest first.

2026
Affected products added · inspektor-gadget/inspektor-gadget
Oct 13, 2026 · CVE Program (cve.org) e CISA ADP
SSVC assessment updated
Oct 13, 2026 · CVE Program (cve.org) e CISA ADP
Record published
Oct 13, 2026
CVSS changed · 5.5
Oct 13, 2026 · NIST National Vulnerability Database
Source status changed · → Analyzed
Oct 13, 2026 · NIST National Vulnerability Database
Record created in this database
Oct 13, 2026 · NIST National Vulnerability Database
CVE published
Mar 12, 2026 · GitHub_M

Source activity

Repeated readings are counted rather than listed.

1× Official description updated · Oct 13, 2026 – Oct 13, 2026

References

1 on the record

github.com/inspektor-gadget/inspektor-gadget/security/advisories/GHSA-wv52-frfv-
Exploit, Vendor Advisory, x_refsource_CONFIRM, NIST National Vulnerability Database

Elsewhere on this site

Inspektor-gadget
every CVE for this vendor

CWE-223
other pages naming this weakness

Related CVEs (same products)

Medium CVE-2026-53941 Inspektor Gadget Uprobe gadgets: unprivileged container's ld.so.cache causes high CPU utilization and container startup DoS Sep 15, 2026
Low CVE-2026-44778 Inspektor Gadget: Unprivileged container can crash USDT note parser via crafted ELF Sep 15, 2026
Critical CVE-2026-25996 Inspektor Gadget uses unsanitized ANSI Escape Sequences In `columns` Output Mode Feb 12, 2026
High CVE-2026-24905 Inspektor Gadget has a Command Injection vulnerability in Makefile.build Jan 29, 2026

Not in any source we poll

Listed rather than left blank: an empty field and an unmeasured one look identical on screen, and only one is a reason to look elsewhere.

No fixed version, patch or mitigation documented.
No confirmed IOCs, IP addresses, domains, file hashes, or malware artifacts supplied.
No organization-specific asset inventory, compensating-control status, or patch deployment evidence supplied.
No exploit packet captures, log samples, or incident case IDs supplied.

Answered from this record

Text assembled only from the fields above — no additional claims.

What should defenders know first?

CVE-2026-31890 is "Inspektor Gadget: Tracing Denial of Service via Event Flooding", rated Medium. It affects Inspektor-gadget (Inspektor-gadget); versions are in the scope table. It is not in CISA KEV, which does not rule out exploitation. CVSS 5.5 describes technical severity. EPSS 0.15% estimates the probability of exploitation in 30 days; neither replaces your asset context. First verify whether exposed or business-critical assets run the affected versions, apply vendor fixes or mitigations, and preserve logs for review.

Comments

Moderated technical discussion. Read the community guidelines.

No comments yet.