Publicly released exploit code for an effectively unpatched vulnerability that gives root access to virtually all releases of Linux is setting off alarm bells as defenders scramble to ward off severe compromises inside data centers and on personal devices. The vulnerability and exploit code that exploits it were released Wednesday evening by researchers from security firm Theori, five weeks after privately disclosing it to the Linux kernel security team. The team patched the vulnerability in versions 7.0 , 6.19.12 , 6.18.12 , 6.12.85, 6.6.137, 6.1.170, 5.15.204, and 5.10.254) but few of the Linux distributions had incorporated those fixes at the time the exploit was released. A single script hacks all distros The critical flaw, tracked as CVE-2026-31431 and the name CopyFail, is a local privilege escalation, a vulnerability class that allows unprivileged users to elevate themselves to administrators.…