CVE-2026-47557 in GeForce
Summary
by MITRE • 09/30/2026
NVIDIA GPU Display Driver for Linux contains a vulnerability in the kernel mode layer where an unprivileged user could cause a NULL pointer dereference. A successful exploit of this vulnerability might lead to denial of service.
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Analysis
by VulDB Data Team • 09/30/2026
The identified security flaw resides within the NVIDIA Graphics Processing Unit display driver for Linux operating systems, specifically targeting the kernel-mode execution environment. This architectural placement is critical because kernel mode operates with the highest level of privilege on a system, granting direct access to hardware resources and core memory structures without the restrictions imposed by user-space applications. The vulnerability manifests as a NULL pointer dereference condition triggered when an unprivileged local user interacts with specific driver interfaces or subsystems responsible for display management. In typical software development practices, functions that handle dynamic data allocation or external inputs must rigorously validate pointers before attempting to access memory addresses they reference. However, in this instance, the code fails to adequately verify whether a pointer is valid and non-null prior to its use, leading to an immediate fault when the system attempts to read from or write to address zero.
From a technical perspective, a NULL pointer dereference occurs when software tries to access memory at address 0x0, which is reserved by operating systems for detecting null references but is not mapped into accessible physical memory in most modern architectures. When this illegal memory access event happens within the kernel space of an NVIDIA GPU driver, it typically results in a critical system error known as a page fault or general protection fault. Because the Linux kernel cannot gracefully recover from such severe exceptions originating in core drivers without compromising system integrity, the standard response is to halt execution immediately. This mechanism prevents potential data corruption but inevitably leads to a complete system crash or an automatic reboot of the host machine. The vulnerability does not require elevated privileges to trigger, meaning any local user account on the affected Linux distribution can potentially initiate this fault sequence by invoking specific IOCTL commands or API calls exposed by the driver module.
The operational impact of exploiting this vulnerability is primarily centered around denial of service against both the individual session and the entire host system. Since the crash occurs in kernel mode, it affects all processes running on the machine, not just the process that triggered the fault. For environments relying on NVIDIA GPUs for compute-intensive tasks such as scientific simulations, artificial intelligence training, or high-performance rendering, an unexpected reboot results in significant loss of computational progress and potential data inconsistency if unsaved states are lost. Furthermore, in server or cloud computing contexts where availability is paramount, this vulnerability can be leveraged by malicious actors to disrupt services hosted on compromised instances. While the primary outcome is system instability rather than arbitrary code execution, the reliability degradation poses a substantial risk to operational continuity and service level agreements dependent on GPU acceleration capabilities.
Mitigation strategies for this issue involve applying vendor-provided patches that update the NVIDIA display driver to versions where input validation logic has been strengthened. Administrators should ensure that all systems utilizing affected drivers are updated to release versions that explicitly address the NULL pointer dereference in the kernel-mode layer. In addition to patching, defense-in-depth measures such as restricting access to GPU device nodes via file system permissions can limit exposure to unprivileged users until updates are deployed. Monitoring tools configured to detect frequent kernel panics or driver-related segfaults may also help identify attempted exploitation activities early. Compliance with industry standards highlights this flaw under CWE-476, which defines the improper null pointer dereference vulnerability type, and aligns with ATT&CK techniques related to resource hijacking through denial of service actions by local users aiming to disrupt system availability.