NULL Pointer Dereference Affecting kernel-source package, versions <6.12.0-160000.26.1


Severity

Recommended
0.0
medium
0
10

Based on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server security rating.

Threat Intelligence

EPSS
0.02% (5th percentile)

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  • Snyk IDSNYK-SLES1600-KERNELSOURCE-15435016
  • published6 Mar 2026
  • disclosed27 Feb 2026

Introduced: 27 Feb 2026

CVE-2026-23002  (opens in a new tab)
CWE-476  (opens in a new tab)

How to fix?

Upgrade SLES:16.0.0 kernel-source to version 6.12.0-160000.26.1 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:16.0.0 relevant fixed versions and status.

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

lib/buildid: use __kernel_read() for sleepable context

Prevent a "BUG: unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference in filemap_read_folio".

For the sleepable context, convert freader to use __kernel_read() instead of direct page cache access via read_cache_folio(). This simplifies the faultable code path by using the standard kernel file reading interface which handles all the complexity of reading file data.

At the moment we are not changing the code for non-sleepable context which uses filemap_get_folio() and only succeeds if the target folios are already in memory and up-to-date. The reason is to keep the patch simple and easier to backport to stable kernels.

Syzbot repro does not crash the kernel anymore and the selftests run successfully.

In the follow up we will make __kernel_read() with IOCB_NOWAIT work for non-sleepable contexts. In addition, I would like to replace the secretmem check with a more generic approach and will add fstest for the buildid code.

CVSS Base Scores

version 3.1