Linux Kernel up to 7.1.4 dma-fence null pointer dereference

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability was found in Linux Kernel up to 7.1.4. It has been classified as critical. This affects an unknown part of the component dma-fence. Performing a manipulation results in null pointer dereference. This vulnerability is identified as CVE-2026-74418. The attack can be initiated remotely. There is not any exploit available.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Linux Kernel up to 7.1.4. It has been classified as critical. This affects an unknown code block of the component dma-fence. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a null pointer dereference vulnerability. CWE is classifying the issue as CWE-476. A NULL pointer dereference occurs when the application dereferences a pointer that it expects to be valid, but is NULL, typically causing a crash or exit. This is going to have an impact on confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The summary by CVE is:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: dma-fence: Fix potential tracepoint null pointer dereferences Trace_dma_fence_signaled, trace_dma_fence_wait_end and trace_dma_fence_destroy can all currently dereference a null fence->ops pointer after it has been reset on fence signalling. Lets use the safe string getters for most tracepoints to avoid this class of a problem, while for the signal tracepoint we move it to before ops are cleared to avoid losing the driver and timeline name information. Apart from moving it we also need to add a new tracepoint class to bypass the safe name getters since the signaled bit is already set. For dma_fence_init we also need to use the new tracepoint class since the rcu read lock is not held there, and we can do the same for the enable signaling since there we are certain the fence cannot be signaled while we are holding the lock and have even validated the fence->ops.

The advisory is shared at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability is uniquely identified as CVE-2026-74418 since 08/15/2026. The exploitability is told to be easy. It is possible to initiate the attack remotely. Neither technical details nor an exploit are publicly available. The price for an exploit might be around USD $0-$5k at the moment (estimation calculated on 08/15/2026).

Upgrading to version 7.1.5 or 7.2-rc1 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch 4e01fc9a5bc49b04fad403ffa71299b35e132ca8/e94b9f01543cc6a83538c2c2cc645a424d3015ca is able to eliminate this problem.

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Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 7.1.0
• 7.1.1
• 7.1.2
• 7.1.3
• 7.1.4

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

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