NULL Pointer Dereference Affecting kernel-debug-devel-matched package, versions *


Severity

Recommended
0.0
medium
0
10

Based on CentOS security rating.

Threat Intelligence

EPSS
0.16% (6th percentile)

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  • Snyk IDSNYK-CENTOS10-KERNELDEBUGDEVELMATCHED-19144404
  • published21 Aug 2026
  • disclosed15 Aug 2026

Introduced: 15 Aug 2026

NewCVE-2026-74342  (opens in a new tab)
CWE-476  (opens in a new tab)

How to fix?

There is no fixed version for Centos:10 kernel-debug-devel-matched.

NVD Description

Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream kernel-debug-devel-matched package and not the kernel-debug-devel-matched 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:

kernfs: link kn to its parent before the LSM init hook

After commit 12e9e3cd03b5 ("simpe_xattr: use per-sb cache"), kernfs_xattr_set() and kernfs_xattr_get() compute the cache via kernfs_root(kn) before any other check. kernfs_root(kn) walks kn->__parent first and falls back to kn->dir.root, both of which are NULL on a freshly kmem_cache_zalloc()'d kn. kn->__parent was being set in kernfs_new_node() after __kernfs_new_node() returned, and kn->dir.root is set even later by kernfs_create_dir_ns() / kernfs_create_empty_dir().

The LSM kernfs_init_security hook is invoked from inside __kernfs_new_node(), before either field has been initialized. selinux_kernfs_init_security() ends with kernfs_xattr_set(kn, XATTR_NAME_SELINUX, ...). kernfs_root(kn) then returns NULL, and &((struct kernfs_root *)NULL)->xa_cache evaluates to offsetof(struct kernfs_root, xa_cache) which faults:

BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 00000000000000e0 RIP: 0010:simple_xattr_set+0x27/0x8b0 Call Trace: kernfs_xattr_set+0x63/0xb0 selinux_kernfs_init_security+0x13b/0x270 security_kernfs_init_security+0x36/0xc0 __kernfs_new_node+0x182/0x290 kernfs_new_node+0x80/0xc0 kernfs_create_dir_ns+0x2b/0xa0 cgroup_create+0x116/0x380 cgroup_mkdir+0x7c/0x1a0

Reproduces deterministically at PID 1 (systemd) on an SELinux-enabled distro. The first cgroup mkdir under /sys/fs/cgroup with a labelled parent panics the kernel.

The LSM hook's contract is that the kn_dir argument is the parent of the new kn, so kn->__parent should already point at kn_dir when the hook runs. Move kernfs_get(parent) and rcu_assign_pointer of kn->__parent from kernfs_new_node() into __kernfs_new_node() right before the security hook, and unwind the parent reference on the err_out4 path. kernfs_root(kn) then takes its parent branch during the hook and returns parent->dir.root, which is the correct root.

This also closes the same-shape latent bug in kernfs_xattr_get() (which today is hidden only by kernfs_iattrs_noalloc() returning NULL on a fresh kn).

CVSS Base Scores

version 3.1