NULL Pointer Dereference Affecting kernel-docs-html package, versions <6.12.0-160000.33.1


Severity

Recommended
0.0
medium
0
10

Based on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server security rating.

Threat Intelligence

EPSS
0.11% (2nd percentile)

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  • Snyk IDSNYK-SLES1600-KERNELDOCSHTML-17125875
  • published2 Jun 2026
  • disclosed28 May 2026

Introduced: 28 May 2026

NewCVE-2026-23396  (opens in a new tab)
CWE-476  (opens in a new tab)

How to fix?

Upgrade SLES:16.0.0 kernel-docs-html to version 6.12.0-160000.33.1 or higher.

NVD Description

Note: Versions mentioned in the description apply only to the upstream kernel-docs-html package and not the kernel-docs-html package as distributed by SLES. See How to fix? for SLES:16.0.0 relevant fixed versions and status.

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

wifi: mac80211: fix NULL deref in mesh_matches_local()

mesh_matches_local() unconditionally dereferences ie->mesh_config to compare mesh configuration parameters. When called from mesh_rx_csa_frame(), the parsed action-frame elements may not contain a Mesh Configuration IE, leaving ie->mesh_config NULL and triggering a kernel NULL pointer dereference.

The other two callers are already safe:

  • ieee80211_mesh_rx_bcn_presp() checks !elems->mesh_config before calling mesh_matches_local()
  • mesh_plink_get_event() is only reached through mesh_process_plink_frame(), which checks !elems->mesh_config, too

mesh_rx_csa_frame() is the only caller that passes raw parsed elements to mesh_matches_local() without guarding mesh_config. An adjacent attacker can exploit this by sending a crafted CSA action frame that includes a valid Mesh ID IE but omits the Mesh Configuration IE, crashing the kernel.

The captured crash log:

Oops: general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address ... KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000000-0x0000000000000007] Workqueue: events_unbound cfg80211_wiphy_work [...] Call Trace: <TASK> ? __pfx_mesh_matches_local (net/mac80211/mesh.c:65) ieee80211_mesh_rx_queued_mgmt (net/mac80211/mesh.c:1686) [...] ieee80211_iface_work (net/mac80211/iface.c:1754 net/mac80211/iface.c:1802) [...] cfg80211_wiphy_work (net/wireless/core.c:426) process_one_work (net/kernel/workqueue.c:3280) ? assign_work (net/kernel/workqueue.c:1219) worker_thread (net/kernel/workqueue.c:3352) ? __pfx_worker_thread (net/kernel/workqueue.c:3385) kthread (net/kernel/kthread.c:436) [...] ret_from_fork_asm (net/arch/x86/entry/entry_64.S:255) </TASK>

This patch adds a NULL check for ie->mesh_config at the top of mesh_matches_local() to return false early when the Mesh Configuration IE is absent.

CVSS Base Scores

version 3.1