Untrusted Pointer Dereference in Linux kernel - CVE-2026-98037
Published: September 28, 2026
Vulnerability identifier: #VU152437
CSH Severity: Low
CVSS v4: 4.8 [CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N]
CVE-ID: CVE-2026-98037
CWE-ID: CWE-822
Exploitation vector: Local access
Exploit availability:
No public exploit available
Vulnerability details
The vulnerability allows a local user to trigger a NULL or stale-memory dereference.
The vulnerability exists due to improper validation of untrusted pointer state in the BPF verifier's type_is_ptr_alloc_obj() predicate when validating a refcount-only local kptr after RCU protection ends. A local user can pass a demoted local kptr to bpf_refcount_acquire() to trigger a NULL or stale-memory dereference.
Fault-protected reads of the demoted pointer remain valid.
Affected software
Linux kernel
How to mitigate CVE-2026-98037
Install security update from vendor's repository.
Linux kernel - update to 7.0 rc3