NULL pointer dereference in Linux kernel - CVE-2026-98467

Vulnerability identifier: #VU156765

CSH Severity: Low

CVSS v4: 5.7 [CVSS:4.0/AV:L/AC:L/AT:P/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N]

CVE-ID: CVE-2026-98467

CWE-ID: CWE-476

Exploitation vector: Local access

Exploit availability: No public exploit available

The vulnerability allows a local user to cause a denial of service through a kernel null pointer dereference.

The vulnerability exists due to a null pointer dereference in the Linux kernel arm64 KVM nested virtualization functions kvm_nested_s2_unmap() and kvm_nested_s2_wp() when VNCR_EL2 invalidation races with nested guest stage 2 page-table teardown. A local user can trigger overlapping invalidation and teardown operations to potentially crash the host kernel when invalidation dereferences a page-table pointer that teardown has set to NULL.

Linux kernel
Ubuntu
linux (Ubuntu package)
linux-aws (Ubuntu package)
linux-gcp (Ubuntu package)
linux-oracle (Ubuntu package)
linux-ibm (Ubuntu package)
linux-hwe-7.0 (Ubuntu package)
linux-oem-7.0 (Ubuntu package)

Install security update from vendor's repository.

Linux kernel - update to 7.0 rc3
linux (Ubuntu package) - update to 7.0.0-42.42
linux-aws (Ubuntu package) - update to 7.0.0-1016.17
linux-gcp (Ubuntu package) - update to 7.0.0-1016.18
linux-oracle (Ubuntu package) - update to 7.0.0-1015.16
linux-ibm (Ubuntu package) - update to 7.0.0-1017.17
linux-hwe-7.0 (Ubuntu package) - update to 7.0.0-42.42~24.04.1
linux-oem-7.0 (Ubuntu package) - update to 7.0.0-1017.17

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/3cefc1ab511fad6a0f708e7a4aee9f91346e9457
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/4c74e233cdedd11592775fae2a6243e67ca3f891
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/970de111c087488e53cadf5480b94e0f695db985

• NULL pointer dereference in Linux kernel arm64 kvm
• Ubuntu update for linux-oem-7.0
• Ubuntu update for linux, linux-aws, linux-gcp and more