CVE Catalog

CVE-2026-89561

HighCVSS 7.5
Published: Updated: Translated: NVD NIST

Exploitation Probability (EPSS)

Low risk
0.43%

37th percentile - higher than 37% of all known CVEs

Summary

A NULL pointer dereference vulnerability exists in the Linux kernel's ipv6_rpl_srh_rcv() function, which reads idev->cnf.rpl_seg_enabled without checking whether idev from __in6_dev_get() is NULL. When the device MTU drops below IPV6_MIN_MTU, addrconf_ifdown() clears dev->ip6_ptr, and a packet that passed the earlier idev check can reach ipv6_rpl_srh_rcv() with a NULL pointer.

Risk Assessment

The vulnerability can cause a kernel crash (panic) and denial of service (DoS) on an IPv6 router with RPL enabled. Exploitation requires the ability to send IPv6 traffic to an interface whose MTU is being changed.

Recommendation

Update the Linux kernel to a version containing the fix that moves the idev check into ipv6_rthdr_rcv() and drops packets with SKB_DROP_REASON_IPV6DISABLED. Until patching, consider restricting access to IPv6 interfaces with RPL enabled.

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

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Original NVD description (English source)

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ipv6: rpl: fix NULL dereference of idev in ipv6_rpl_srh_rcv() ipv6_rpl_srh_rcv() dereferences idev from __in6_dev_get() without a NULL check when reading idev->cnf.rpl_seg_enabled. When the device's MTU drops below IPV6_MIN_MTU, addrconf_ifdown() clears dev->ip6_ptr through RCU_INIT_POINTER(). A packet that passed the idev check in ip6_rcv_core() can then reach ipv6_rpl_srh_rcv() with dev->ip6_ptr already NULL. Reproduced by flooding the receiving interface with ping6 traffic while flapping its MTU between 1500 and 1200: BUG: KASAN: null-ptr-deref in ipv6_rpl_srh_rcv+0xb3/0x1070 Read of size 4 at addr 00000000000006b4 by task ping6/394 CPU: 2 UID: 0 PID: 394 Comm: ping6 Not tainted 7.2.0-rc7-micro-vm-dev-00095-g24ef02f934ee #240 PREEMPT(full) Call Trace: <IRQ> kasan_report+0xc6/0x100 ipv6_rpl_srh_rcv+0xb3/0x1070 ip6_protocol_deliver_rcu+0x759/0x9a0 ip6_input_finish+0xa8/0x1b0 ip6_input+0xe1/0x490 ipv6_rcv+0x33d/0x460 __netif_receive_skb_one_core+0xd6/0x130 process_backlog+0x2cc/0xa00 __napi_poll.constprop.0+0x56/0x270 net_rx_action+0x327/0x730 handle_softirqs+0x11e/0x630 do_softirq+0xb3/0xf0 </IRQ> Both ipv6_rpl_srh_rcv() and ipv6_srh_rcv() are called only from ipv6_rthdr_rcv(), which already has an idev lookup. Fix the NULL dereference on the RPL path by checking idev in ipv6_rthdr_rcv(), before it calls either function. The callees take idev as an argument and no longer call __in6_dev_get(), so the packet is now dropped in one place, with SKB_DROP_REASON_IPV6DISABLED on both paths.

Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS