CriticalSecurity & Privacy
Severe Linux Copy Fail security flaw uncovered using AI scanning help
A critical Linux vulnerability called "Copy Fail" (CVE-2026-31431) affecting nearly all distributions since 2017 allows unprivileged users to escalate to administrator privileges through a universal exploit that evades standard security monitoring tools. The flaw was discovered using AI-assisted code scanning and poses significant risk to IT infrastructure, as the exploit details were publicly disclosed before many Linux distributions could deploy patches, leaving the majority of deployments vulnerable. IT organizations must immediately prioritize patching while reassessing their security monitoring capabilities, as traditional file integrity tools cannot detect this page-cache corruption attack.
Nearly every Linux distribution released since 2017 is currently vulnerable to a security bug called "Copy Fail" that allows any user to give themselves administrator privileges. The exploit, publicly disclosed as CVE-2026-31431 on Wednesday, uses a Python script that works across all of the vulnerable Linux distributions, requiring "no per-distro offsets, no version checks, no recompilation," according to Theori, the security firm that uncovered it. Ars Technica points out this blog post where DevOps engineer Jorijn Schrijvershof explains that what makes Copy Fail "unusually nasty" is the likelihood for it to go unnoticed by monitoring t … Read the full story at The Verge.