NULL Pointer Dereference Affecting kernel-rt-core package, versions *
Threat Intelligence
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Test your applications- Snyk IDSNYK-CENTOS10-KERNELRTCORE-18980328
- published20 Aug 2026
- disclosed15 Aug 2026
Introduced: 15 Aug 2026
NewCVE-2026-72341 (opens in a new tab)How to fix?
There is no fixed version for Centos:10 kernel-rt-core.
NVD Description
Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream kernel-rt-core package and not the kernel-rt-core 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/mlx5e: Fix publication race for priv->channel_stats[]
mlx5e_channel_stats_alloc() publishes a new entry to priv->channel_stats[] and then increments priv->stats_nch as a publication token, but neither store carries any memory barrier:
priv->channel_stats[ix] = kvzalloc_node(...);
if (!priv->channel_stats[ix])
return -ENOMEM;
priv->stats_nch++;
Concurrent readers compute the loop bound from priv->stats_nch and then dereference priv->channel_stats[i] using plain accesses, e.g.
for (i = 0; i < priv->stats_nch; i++) {
struct mlx5e_channel_stats *cs = priv->channel_stats[i];
... cs->rq.packets ...
}
On weakly-ordered architectures (ARM, PowerPC, RISC-V) the writes to channel_stats[ix] and stats_nch may become visible to other CPUs out of program order. A reader can observe stats_nch == N while still seeing channel_stats[N-1] == NULL, leading to a NULL pointer dereference in the channel_stats loop.
This has been observed in production on BlueField-3 DPUs (arm64), where ovs-vswitchd queries netdev statistics over netlink during NIC bringup, racing mlx5e_open_channel() -> mlx5e_channel_stats_alloc() on another CPU:
Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 0x840 Hardware name: BlueField-3 DPU pc : mlx5e_fold_sw_stats64+0x30/0x180 [mlx5_core] Call trace: mlx5e_fold_sw_stats64+0x30/0x180 [mlx5_core] dev_get_stats+0x50/0xc0 ovs_vport_get_stats+0x38/0xac [openvswitch] ovs_vport_cmd_fill_info+0x194/0x290 [openvswitch] ovs_vport_cmd_get+0xbc/0x10c [openvswitch] genl_family_rcv_msg_doit+0xd0/0x160 genl_rcv_msg+0xec/0x1f0 netlink_rcv_skb+0x64/0x130 genl_rcv+0x40/0x60 netlink_unicast+0x2fc/0x370 netlink_sendmsg+0x1dc/0x454 ... __arm64_sys_sendmsg+0x2c/0x40
Add mlx5e_stats_nch_write() and mlx5e_stats_nch_read() helpers in en.h that wrap the smp_store_release()/smp_load_acquire() pair on stats_nch. The release/acquire pair establishes the contract:
stats_nch == N => channel_stats[0..N-1] are visible and non-NULL.
Publish the stats_nch increment via mlx5e_stats_nch_write() in the writer (mlx5e_channel_stats_alloc()), and read stats_nch via mlx5e_stats_nch_read() in all readers: mlx5e RX/TX queue stats, mlx5e_get_base_stats(), ethtool channels stats, IPoIB stats, the sw_stats fold and the HV VHCA stats agent.
References
- https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2516294
- https://access.redhat.com/security/cve/CVE-2026-72341
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/5a799714e8ca0bce9ea40694f49914cf1adbbaa9
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/5c7e3755abf663f033de24f917b77685e9543045
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/815515ec68f527ca755cb1e2c1ff9148f6b3ea56