Bug 2562758 (CVE-2026-99160)

Summary: CVE-2026-99160 kernel: kernel: Denial of Service via null pointer dereference in ring buffer metadata
Product: [Other] Security Response Reporter: OSIDB Bzimport <bzimport>
Component: vulnerabilityAssignee: Product Security DevOps Team <prodsec-dev>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: unspecifiedCC: akhatavk, aos-team-art-private, asdas, dpaolell, jdelft, jupierce, lgarciaa, mbiarnes, ppalepu, ppostler, prdhamdh, rhel-process-autobot, sghai, sidsharm, suppawar, vlaad, watson-tool-maintainers
Target Milestone: ---Keywords: Security
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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Fixed In Version: Doc Type: ---
Doc Text:
A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's ring buffer subsystem. A local user can exploit this vulnerability to cause a Denial of Service (DoS) by crashing the kernel. The issue occurs when reading ring buffer metadata files for a central processing unit (CPU) that has never come online, resulting in a null pointer dereference.
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description OSIDB Bzimport 2026-10-28 11:04:50 UTC
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

ring-buffer: Do not show buffer_meta for CPUs without a buffer

The per_cpu/cpuN/buffer_meta files are created for every possible CPU,
but buffer->buffers[cpu] is only allocated once that CPU comes online.
Reading the file of a CPU that never came online dereferences a NULL
cpu_buffer in rbm_start().

Fail the open with -ENODEV when the CPU has no buffer, as the other
per CPU ring buffer interfaces do.