Raw vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:HCVSS and EPSS are reproduced from their sources (NVD, FIRST EPSS). EPSS scores by FIRST (EPSS SIG), generated by Empirical Security. Risk Priority is our own derived reading, not an NVD score.
Summary
CVE-2024-26738 is a medium-severity NULL Pointer Dereference (CWE-476) vulnerability in Linux Kernel. Its CVSS base score is 5.5 (Medium).
Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Exploitation for Client Execution (T1203); ranked at the 15th percentile by exploit likelihood (below the median); it is not currently listed in the CISA KEV catalog.
The strongest mitigations our analysis identified map to SA-11 (Developer Testing and Evaluation) and SA-15 (Development Process, Standards, and Tools) — see the control section below for these in your framework.
OWASP Top 10 for Web (2025)
EU & UK References
- 🇪🇺 ENISA EUVD: EUVD-2024-24000
Vulnerability Data
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: powerpc/pseries/iommu: DLPAR add doesn't completely initialize pci_controller When a PCI device is dynamically added, the kernel oopses with a NULL pointer dereference: BUG: Kernel NULL pointer dereference on read at…
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0x00000030 Faulting instruction address: 0xc0000000006bbe5c Oops: Kernel access of bad area, sig: 11 [#1] LE PAGE_SIZE=64K MMU=Radix SMP NR_CPUS=2048 NUMA pSeries Modules linked in: rpadlpar_io rpaphp rpcsec_gss_krb5 auth_rpcgss nfsv4 dns_resolver nfs lockd grace fscache netfs xsk_diag bonding nft_compat nf_tables nfnetlink rfkill binfmt_misc dm_multipath rpcrdma sunrpc rdma_ucm ib_srpt ib_isert iscsi_target_mod target_core_mod ib_umad ib_iser libiscsi scsi_transport_iscsi ib_ipoib rdma_cm iw_cm ib_cm mlx5_ib ib_uverbs ib_core pseries_rng drm drm_panel_orientation_quirks xfs libcrc32c mlx5_core mlxfw sd_mod t10_pi sg tls ibmvscsi ibmveth scsi_transport_srp vmx_crypto pseries_wdt psample dm_mirror dm_region_hash dm_log dm_mod fuse CPU: 17 PID: 2685 Comm: drmgr Not tainted 6.7.0-203405+ #66 Hardware name: IBM,9080-HEX POWER10 (raw) 0x800200 0xf000006 of:IBM,FW1060.00 (NH1060_008) hv:phyp pSeries NIP: c0000000006bbe5c LR: c000000000a13e68 CTR: c0000000000579f8 REGS: c00000009924f240 TRAP: 0300 Not tainted (6.7.0-203405+) MSR: 8000000000009033 <SF,EE,ME,IR,DR,RI,LE> CR: 24002220 XER: 20040006 CFAR: c000000000a13e64 DAR: 0000000000000030 DSISR: 40000000 IRQMASK: 0 ... NIP sysfs_add_link_to_group+0x34/0x94 LR iommu_device_link+0x5c/0x118 Call Trace: iommu_init_device+0x26c/0x318 (unreliable) iommu_device_link+0x5c/0x118 iommu_init_device+0xa8/0x318 iommu_probe_device+0xc0/0x134 iommu_bus_notifier+0x44/0x104 notifier_call_chain+0xb8/0x19c blocking_notifier_call_chain+0x64/0x98 bus_notify+0x50/0x7c device_add+0x640/0x918 pci_device_add+0x23c/0x298 of_create_pci_dev+0x400/0x884 of_scan_pci_dev+0x124/0x1b0 __of_scan_bus+0x78/0x18c pcibios_scan_phb+0x2a4/0x3b0 init_phb_dynamic+0xb8/0x110 dlpar_add_slot+0x170/0x3b8 [rpadlpar_io] add_slot_store.part.0+0xb4/0x130 [rpadlpar_io] kobj_attr_store+0x2c/0x48 sysfs_kf_write+0x64/0x78 kernfs_fop_write_iter+0x1b0/0x290 vfs_write+0x350/0x4a0 ksys_write+0x84/0x140 system_call_exception+0x124/0x330 system_call_vectored_common+0x15c/0x2ec Commit a940904443e4 ("powerpc/iommu: Add iommu_ops to report capabilities and allow blocking domains") broke DLPAR add of PCI devices. The above added iommu_device structure to pci_controller. During system boot, PCI devices are discovered and this newly added iommu_device structure is initialized by a call to iommu_device_register(). During DLPAR add of a PCI device, a new pci_controller structure is allocated but there are no calls made to iommu_device_register() interface. Fix is to register the iommu device during DLPAR add as well.
- CWE(s)
Related Threats
MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise Techniques
CVEs Like This One
Affected Assets
Mitigating Controls
Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI
Developer testing and evaluation (including static analysis) directly finds null-dereference bugs before deployment.
Documented development standards and tools can enforce null-safety rules and safe pointer usage.
Engineering principles can mandate defensive coding such as explicit null checks before dereference.
Mitigating Controls (NIST CSF 2.0) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→CSF cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Secure SDLC practices (static analysis, code review, safe coding standards) directly prevent NULL dereference bugs during development.
Mitigating Controls (ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A) AI
Derived directly from the weakness types (CWEs) cited in the NVD entry via our AI-authored CWE→ISO cross-walk (authority under review) — links open the control.
Security testing can detect NULL dereference defects before release.
Secure coding standards directly require NULL-pointer checks and safe dereference patterns.