MediumCVE-2026-68141

    Linux Kernel: NULL Pointer Dereference (CVE-2026-68141)

    Published Last modified Sources: SUSE, Ubuntu, Debian LTS, CVE.org, Msrc Update Guide, BSI

    What is affected, what to do

    In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net/af_iucv: fix NULL deref in afiucv_hs_callback_syn() afiucv_hs_callback_syn() allocates the child socket with GFP_ATOMIC. If the allocation fails, nsk is NULL.

    Update Linux Kernel to version 5.10.265, Linux Kernel to version 5.15.216, Linux Kernel to version 6.1.183.

    Affected
    • Linux Kernel lt 3.2..5.10.265
    • Linux Kernel lt 5.11..5.15.216
    • Linux Kernel lt 5.16..6.1.183
    • Linux Kernel lt 6.2..6.6.148
    • Linux Kernel lt 6.7..6.12.101
    • Linux Kernel lt 6.13..6.18.42
    • Linux Kernel lt 6.19..7.1.6
    Fixed in
    • Linux Kernel 5.10.265
    • Linux Kernel 5.15.216
    • Linux Kernel 6.1.183
    • Linux Kernel 6.6.148
    • Linux Kernel 6.12.101
    • Linux Kernel 6.18.42
    • Linux Kernel 7.1.6
    • Linux Kernel 7.2

    Not sure whether and how you are affected? Ask a question about this vulnerability

    Metrics

    5.5

    Priority

    XIEM Effective CVSS: highest available CVSS rating from NVD and vendor data.

    Source: Vendor (CNA), CVSS v3

    5.5

    CVSS v3

    Severity Medium on the scale from 0 to 10.

    Source: SUSE, Ubuntu, Debian LTS, CVE.org, Msrc Update Guide, BSI

    0.5 %

    EPSS score

    Low — model estimates < 1% exploitation likelihood.

    Source: FIRST EPSS, percentile 44.3

    Show all metrics
    Severity
    Medium
    Priority (0–325)

    The priority score is a consolidated metric that condenses several individual signals into a single, action-guiding ranking: technical severity (CVSS), exploitation likelihood (EPSS), known-exploited status (KEV) and the context of the affected asset. The aim is to answer the only truly important question in vulnerability management: what first?

    Read in glossary
    66.00 Methodology
    Exploit maturity

    An exploit is code or a technique that specifically uses a concrete vulnerability to force unintended behaviour — such as executing code or escalating privileges. It is the tool that turns a theoretical flaw into a practical attack.

    Read in glossary
    no public PoC known
    XIEM Effective CVSS

    XIEM® is the tiered managed-security operating model from NEOSEC and a registered trademark of NEOSEC GmbH. It extends classic SIEM — the central collection, normalisation and correlation of security-relevant events — with endpoint forensics, network visibility and deception technology, and consolidates them into three building tiers: Sentry, Orchestrate and Command.

    Read in glossary
    5.5 Methodology
    CVSS v3

    CVSS is the globally established, open standard for assessing the technical severity of a vulnerability on a scale from 0 to 10. It describes how easily a flaw can be exploited and what damage it can cause — but not how likely its actual exploitation is. CVSS and the complementary EPSS deliberately answer different questions.

    Read in glossary
    5.5
    EPSS score

    The EPSS score is the absolute model output for an individual vulnerability: the estimated probability of real-world exploitation within the next 30 days, expressed as a value between 0 and 1 (i.e. 0 % to 100 %). A score of 0.42 means „the model estimates a 42 % chance of real-world exploitation within 30 days“.

    Read in glossary
    0.5 %
    Low — model estimates < 1% exploitation likelihood.
    EPSS percentile

    The EPSS percentile is the relative position of a vulnerability within all EPSS-scored CVEs, expressed as a value between 0 and 1. A percentile of 0.90 means „this CVE has a higher EPSS score than 90 % of all other scored CVEs“. Unlike the EPSS score, it is not a probability — but a positioning within a ranking.

    Read in glossary
    44.3
    High — this CVE ranks above the median of all CVEs scored today (rank ≥ 36%).
    KEV status

    The KEV catalogue is a list maintained by the US authority CISA of vulnerabilities for which active exploitation in the wild has been confirmed. It answers not the question „how severe?“ but „is it already being attacked?“ — thereby sharply prioritising patching.

    Read in glossary
    —
    Published
    CISA assessment (SSVC)
    Exploitation: none known · automatable · Technical impact: partial
    Source: CISA Vulnrichment, as of 16 October 2026
    CWE

    CWE is a catalogue of typical weakness types in software and hardware — such as flawed input validation, unsafe memory handling or poor authentication. Where a CVE names a concrete vulnerability in a concrete product, a CWE describes the underlying class of defect.

    Read in glossary
    CWE-476

    Detection rules

    No NEOSEC detection rule is available for this vulnerability yet.

    Classification under NIS2 and CRA

    Rule-based classification from exploitation status and severity. It does not replace a case-by-case assessment.

    NIS2

    NIS2 is EU Directive (EU) 2022/2555 to raise the level of cybersecurity across the Union. It substantially broadens obligations compared with the first NIS directive: more sectors, mandatory risk management, staged reporting duties and personal accountability of senior management.

    Read in glossary
    Handle the vulnerability in regular vulnerability handling under Art. 21(2)(e) NIS2.
    CRA

    The CRA is EU Regulation (EU) 2024/2847 setting horizontal cybersecurity requirements for „products with digital elements“ — from industrial controllers and software to connected consumer devices. For the first time manufacturers must ensure security across the entire product lifecycle, handle vulnerabilities and provide security updates.

    Read in glossary
    From 11.12.2027, Annex I Part II CRA requires manufacturers of affected products with digital elements to handle vulnerabilities without delay and provide security updates.
    ISO/IEC 27001

    ISO/IEC 27001 is the internationally leading standard for an information security management system (ISMS). It describes a risk-based, process-oriented framework to systematically plan, implement, review and improve information security.

    Read in glossary
    Control A.8.8, management of technical vulnerabilities: assess relevance to your systems, plan remediation and keep evidence.

    Description

    In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net/af_iucv: fix NULL deref in afiucv_hs_callback_syn() afiucv_hs_callback_syn() allocates the child socket with GFP_ATOMIC. If the allocation fails, nsk is NULL. The connection-refused path is entered when the listen state check fails, the accept backlog is full, or nsk is NULL. The code unconditionally calls iucv_sock_kill(nsk) in that path. iucv_sock_kill() does not accept a NULL socket pointer and immediately dereferences sk via sock_flag(sk, SOCK_ZAPPED). When nsk is NULL, calling iucv_sock_kill(nsk) results in a NULL pointer dereference. Only call iucv_sock_kill() when a child socket was successfully allocated.

    Source: suse_csaf, Ubuntu Security Notices, Debian LTS Advisories, NVD (NIST), Microsoft Security Update Guide, cvelistv5, BSI WID Portal, BSI CSAF

    Affected products

    The following versions are affected. Older releases of the same product line are also vulnerable unless stated otherwise.

    Affected products
    Affected versionsFixed in
    LinuxLinux
    • 6.7 – < 6.12.101
    • 6.2 – < 6.6.148
    • 5.11 – < 5.15.216
    • 5.16 – < 6.1.183
    • 6.13 – < 6.18.42
    • 3.2 – < 5.10.265
    • —
    • 6.19 – < 7.1.6
    • 6.12.101
    • 6.6.148
    • 5.15.216
    • 6.1.183
    • 6.18.42
    • 5.10.265
    • 7.2
    • 7.1.6

    Vendors and products

    Affected operating systems

    Affected operating systems
    Linuxdebianlinuxbookworm
    Linuxdebianlinux-6.12bookworm
    Linuxubuntulinux-gcp-5.15focal

    Weakness classes (CWE)

    • CWE-476NULL Pointer Dereference

      Base

      The product dereferences a pointer that it expects to be valid but is NULL.

      Entry at MITRE CWE-476

    References & sources

    Changes to this CVE

    Who changed this CVE and when: NVD (analysis, affected products, CVSS), the CVE publisher (CNA) and additional providers such as CISA (ADP).

    1. Record modifiedCISA ADP

      Weakness type: CWE-476

      Show the original change
      Individual changes of this event as published by NVD
      TypeActionBeforeAfter
      Weakness type (CWE)added
      —
      CWE-476

      Source identifier: 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0

    2. Record modifiedLinux

      Show 16 original changes
      Individual changes of this event as published by NVD
      TypeActionBeforeAfter
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/07e21deb3664001995e0a456dd627ab7dbe127ec
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/0e857185591fe79934427c9c0c1c31dc776be134
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/33736ff5e7c97d3348ce812e8bd2e125d840743c
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/46453b16f38ec7147351f7447e2aec6ea330f7b3
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/47a5116e56a6b6fe1e909f244e39cd0fc26ceee4
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/6a1eb5b46c19073f8153b7e2c19b408cf353aaf1
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/8bb111f87ded6acb9837ec9b45d6f02cda94c51f
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/c0b6e2ae90613c2fea7eaf3faa20985c6c2a1953
      Referenceremoved
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/07e21deb3664001995e0a456dd627ab7dbe127ec
      —
      Referenceremoved
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/0e857185591fe79934427c9c0c1c31dc776be134
      —
      Referenceremoved
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/33736ff5e7c97d3348ce812e8bd2e125d840743c
      —
      Referenceremoved
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/46453b16f38ec7147351f7447e2aec6ea330f7b3
      —
      Referenceremoved
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/47a5116e56a6b6fe1e909f244e39cd0fc26ceee4
      —
      Referenceremoved
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/6a1eb5b46c19073f8153b7e2c19b408cf353aaf1
      —
      Referenceremoved
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/8bb111f87ded6acb9837ec9b45d6f02cda94c51f
      —
      Referenceremoved
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/c0b6e2ae90613c2fea7eaf3faa20985c6c2a1953
      —

      Source identifier: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

    3. Record modifiedCISA ADP

      CISA assessment (SSVC): exploitation: none known, automatable: yes

      Show the original change
      Individual changes of this event as published by NVD
      TypeActionBeforeAfter
      SSVC assessmentadded
      —
      {"id":"CVE-2026-68141","role":"CISA Coordinator","options":[{"exploitation":"none"},{"automatable":"yes"},{"technicalImpact":"partial"}],"version":"2.0.3","timestamp":"2026-10-16T15:44:37.607380Z"}

      Source identifier: 134c704f-9b21-4f2e-91b3-4a467353bcc0

    4. Record modifiedLinux

      Show 4 original changes
      Individual changes of this event as published by NVD
      TypeActionBeforeAfter
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/07e21deb3664001995e0a456dd627ab7dbe127ec
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/6a1eb5b46c19073f8153b7e2c19b408cf353aaf1
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/c0b6e2ae90613c2fea7eaf3faa20985c6c2a1953
      Affected versions (publisher)changed
      Linux, Linux
      Linux, Linux

      Source identifier: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

    5. Record modifiedLinux

      1 individual change: Affected versions (publisher)

      Show the original change
      Individual changes of this event as published by NVD
      TypeActionBeforeAfter
      Affected versions (publisher)changed
      Linux, Linux
      Linux, Linux

      Source identifier: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

    Show one older change

    1. ReceivedLinux

      Description added or changed

      Show 7 original changes
      Individual changes of this event as published by NVD
      TypeActionBeforeAfter
      Affected versions (publisher)added
      —
      Linux, Linux
      Descriptionadded
      —
      In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net/af_iucv: fix NULL deref in afiucv_hs_callback_syn() afiucv_hs_callback_syn() allocates the child socket with GFP_ATOMIC. If the allocation fails, nsk is NULL. The connection-refused path is entered when the listen state check fails, the accept backlog is full, or nsk is NULL. The code unconditionally calls iucv_sock_kill(nsk) in that path. iucv_sock_kill() does not accept a NULL socket pointer and immediately dereferences sk via sock_flag(sk, SOCK_ZAPPED). When nsk is NULL, calling iucv_sock_kill(nsk) results in a NULL pointer dereference. Only call iucv_sock_kill() when a child socket was successfully allocated.
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/0e857185591fe79934427c9c0c1c31dc776be134
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/33736ff5e7c97d3348ce812e8bd2e125d840743c
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/46453b16f38ec7147351f7447e2aec6ea330f7b3
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/47a5116e56a6b6fe1e909f244e39cd0fc26ceee4
      Referenceadded
      —
      https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/8bb111f87ded6acb9837ec9b45d6f02cda94c51f

      Source identifier: 416baaa9-dc9f-4396-8d5f-8c081fb06d67

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