NULL Pointer Dereference Affecting kernel-source package, versions <5.14.21-150400.24.194.1


Severity

Recommended
0.0
medium
0
10

Based on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server security rating.

Threat Intelligence

EPSS
0.03% (7th percentile)

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  • Snyk IDSNYK-SLES154-KERNELSOURCE-15350233
  • published25 Feb 2026
  • disclosed24 Feb 2026

Introduced: 24 Feb 2026

NewCVE-2023-54321  (opens in a new tab)
CWE-476  (opens in a new tab)

How to fix?

Upgrade SLES:15.4 kernel-source to version 5.14.21-150400.24.194.1 or higher.

NVD Description

Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream kernel-source package and not the kernel-source package as distributed by SLES. See How to fix? for SLES:15.4 relevant fixed versions and status.

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

driver core: fix potential null-ptr-deref in device_add()

I got the following null-ptr-deref report while doing fault injection test:

BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000058 CPU: 2 PID: 278 Comm: 37-i2c-ds2482 Tainted: G B W N 6.1.0-rc3+ RIP: 0010:klist_put+0x2d/0xd0 Call Trace: <TASK> klist_remove+0xf1/0x1c0 device_release_driver_internal+0x196/0x210 bus_remove_device+0x1bd/0x240 device_add+0xd3d/0x1100 w1_add_master_device+0x476/0x490 [wire] ds2482_probe+0x303/0x3e0 [ds2482]

This is how it happened:

w1_alloc_dev() // The dev->driver is set to w1_master_driver. memcpy(&dev->dev, device, sizeof(struct device)); device_add() bus_add_device() dpm_sysfs_add() // It fails, calls bus_remove_device.

// error path
bus_remove_device()
  // The dev-&gt;driver is not null, but driver is not bound.
  __device_release_driver()
    klist_remove(&amp;dev-&gt;p-&gt;knode_driver) &lt;-- It causes null-ptr-deref.

// normal path bus_probe_device() // It&#39;s not called yet. device_bind_driver()

If dev->driver is set, in the error path after calling bus_add_device() in device_add(), bus_remove_device() is called, then the device will be detached from driver. But device_bind_driver() is not called yet, so it causes null-ptr-deref while access the 'knode_driver'. To fix this, set dev->driver to null in the error path before calling bus_remove_device().

CVSS Base Scores

version 3.1