NULL Pointer Dereference Affecting kernel package, versions *


Severity

Recommended
low

Based on CentOS security rating.

Threat Intelligence

EPSS
0.17% (7th percentile)

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  • Snyk IDSNYK-CENTOS10-KERNEL-18026595
  • published21 Jul 2026
  • disclosed19 Jul 2026

Introduced: 19 Jul 2026

NewCVE-2026-64120  (opens in a new tab)
CWE-476  (opens in a new tab)

How to fix?

There is no fixed version for Centos:10 kernel.

NVD Description

Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream kernel package and not the kernel package as distributed by Centos. See How to fix? for Centos:10 relevant fixed versions and status.

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

net: ethtool: fix NULL pointer dereference in phy_reply_size

In phy_prepare_data(), several strings such as 'name', 'drvname', 'upstream_sfp_name', and 'downstream_sfp_name' are allocated using kstrdup(). However, these allocations were not checked for failure.

If kstrdup() fails for 'name', it returns NULL while the function continues. This leads to a kernel NULL pointer dereference and panic later in phy_reply_size() when it unconditionally calls strlen() on the NULL pointer.

While other strings like 'upstream_sfp_name' might be checked before access in certain code paths, failing to handle these allocations consistently can lead to incomplete data reporting or hidden bugs.

Fix this by adding proper NULL checks for all kstrdup() calls in phy_prepare_data() and implement a centralized error handling path using goto labels to ensure all previously allocated resources are freed on failure.

CVSS Base Scores

version 3.1