Cyber Resilience

CVE-2026-23286

Memory Safety in Linux Kernel 2.6.12.1 – 5.10.253

Published
25 March 2026
Modified
29 May 2026
Patch / advisory
CVSS Score v3.1 5.5
Click a component to see what it means
Raw vectorCVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
EPSS Score 0.0013 3th percentile
Risk Priority 35 floored blend · peak EPSS

Summary

CVE-2026-23286 is a medium-severity NULL Pointer Dereference (CWE-476) vulnerability in Linux Linux Kernel. Its CVSS base score is 5.5 (Medium).

Operationally, exploitation aligns with the MITRE ATT&CK technique Application or System Exploitation (T1499.004); ranked at the 3th 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

Vulnerability Data

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: atm: lec: fix null-ptr-deref in lec_arp_clear_vccs syzkaller reported a null-ptr-deref in lec_arp_clear_vccs(). This issue can be easily reproduced using the syzkaller reproducer. In the ATM LANE (LAN Emulation) module, the…

more

same atm_vcc can be shared by multiple lec_arp_table entries (e.g., via entry->vcc or entry->recv_vcc). When the underlying VCC is closed, lec_vcc_close() iterates over all ARP entries and calls lec_arp_clear_vccs() for each matched entry. For example, when lec_vcc_close() iterates through the hlists in priv->lec_arp_empty_ones or other ARP tables: 1. In the first iteration, for the first matched ARP entry sharing the VCC, lec_arp_clear_vccs() frees the associated vpriv (which is vcc->user_back) and sets vcc->user_back to NULL. 2. In the second iteration, for the next matched ARP entry sharing the same VCC, lec_arp_clear_vccs() is called again. It obtains a NULL vpriv from vcc->user_back (via LEC_VCC_PRIV(vcc)) and then attempts to dereference it via `vcc->pop = vpriv->old_pop`, leading to a null-ptr-deref crash. Fix this by adding a null check for vpriv before dereferencing it. If vpriv is already NULL, it means the VCC has been cleared by a previous call, so we can safely skip the cleanup and just clear the entry's vcc/recv_vcc pointers. The entire cleanup block (including vcc_release_async()) is placed inside the vpriv guard because a NULL vpriv indicates the VCC has already been fully released by a prior iteration — repeating the teardown would redundantly set flags and trigger callbacks on an already-closing socket. The Fixes tag points to the initial commit because the entry->vcc path has been vulnerable since the original code. The entry->recv_vcc path was later added by commit 8d9f73c0ad2f ("atm: fix a memory leak of vcc->user_back") with the same pattern, and both paths are fixed here.

CWE(s)

Related Threats

MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise TechniquesAI

T1499.004 Application or System Exploitation Impact
Adversaries may exploit software vulnerabilities that can cause an application or system to crash and deny availability to users.
Why these techniques?

Local kernel null-deref enables targeted system crash via crafted ATM LANE VCC handling (Endpoint DoS via system exploitation).

Confidence: MEDIUM · MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise v19.0

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Affected Assets

linux
linux kernel
2.6.12, 7.0 · 2.6.12.1 — 5.10.253 · 5.11 — 5.15.203 · 5.16 — 6.1.167

Mitigating Controls

Control response

Prevent
Stop it (NIST 800-53)
  • SA-11 Developer Testing and Evaluation
  • SA-15 Development Process, Standards, and Tools
  • SI-10 Information Input Validation
Detect
Catch it (NIST detect / respond)

Harden
Shrink the surface (DISA STIG)

Validate
Prove the fix (OWASP ASVS)

Mitigating Controls (NIST 800-53 r5) AI

prevent

Developer testing and evaluation (including fuzzing) directly exercises shared VCC/ARP entry paths and would have surfaced the null vpriv dereference before release.

prevent

Secure development standards and tools require defensive null checks and state-machine invariants on shared kernel objects such as vcc->user_back.

prevent

Information input validation mandates explicit checks on internal pointers before dereference, exactly the guard added to lec_arp_clear_vccs.

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.

PR.PS-06 mostly match
prevents

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.

detects

Security testing can detect NULL dereference defects before release.

prevents

Secure SDLC mandates defensive coding practices that can prevent NULL dereferences.

prevents

Application security requirements can specify input validation and pointer-safety rules.

prevents

Secure architecture principles encourage defensive design that avoids unsafe pointer use.

prevents

Secure coding standards directly require NULL-pointer checks and safe dereference patterns.

References