NULL pointer dereference in Linux kernel - CVE-2026-63986

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Main Vulnerability Database Vulnerabilities #VU138670

NULL pointer dereference in Linux kernel - CVE-2026-63986

Published: July 20, 2026


Vulnerability identifier: #VU138670
CSH Severity: Low
CVSS v4: 6.8 [CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N]
CVE-ID: CVE-2026-63986
CWE-ID: CWE-476
Exploitation vector: Local access
Exploit availability: No public exploit available

Vulnerability details

The vulnerability allows a local user to cause a denial of service.

The vulnerability exists due to improper handling of an error pointer in net/ethtool/tsinfo.c when processing ethtool tsinfo dump requests. A local user can trigger the vulnerable code path to cause a denial of service.

The issue occurs because a failed prepare operation can leave no generic netlink message to cancel, leading to a kernel crash when an error pointer is passed to genlmsg_cancel().


Affected software

Linux kernel
Ubuntu
linux-ibm (Ubuntu package)
linux-azure (Ubuntu package)
linux-aws (Ubuntu package)
linux-gcp-7.0 (Ubuntu package)
linux-oracle-7.0 (Ubuntu package)
linux-azure-7.0 (Ubuntu package)
linux-nvidia (Ubuntu package)
linux-nvidia-bos (Ubuntu package)

How to mitigate CVE-2026-63986

Install security update from vendor's repository.

Linux kernel - update to 7.0 rc3
linux-ibm (Ubuntu package) - addressed in versions 7.0.0-1008.8, 7.0.0-1010.10
linux-azure (Ubuntu package) - addressed in versions 7.0.0-1009.9, 7.0.0-1010.10
linux-aws (Ubuntu package) - addressed in versions 7.0.0-1009.9, 7.0.0-1015.15
linux-gcp-7.0 (Ubuntu package) - update to 7.0.0-1011.11~24.04.1
linux-oracle-7.0 (Ubuntu package) - update to 7.0.0-1011.11~24.04.1
linux-azure-7.0 (Ubuntu package) - update to 7.0.0-1014.14~24.04.1
linux-nvidia (Ubuntu package) - addressed in versions 7.0.0-1016.16, 7.0.0-1016.16~24.04.1
linux-nvidia-bos (Ubuntu package) - update to 7.0.0-2016.16

External References

Related Security Bulletins