Linux Kernel up to 7.3-rc3 IB/iser iser_task_rsp dir/sig_protected null pointer dereference

CVSS Meta Temp Score CVSS is a standardized scoring system to determine possibilities of attacks. The Temp Score considers temporal factors like disclosure, exploit and countermeasures. The unique Meta Score calculates the average score of different sources to provide a normalized scoring system.	Current Exploit Price (≈) Our analysts are monitoring exploit markets and are in contact with vulnerability brokers. The range indicates the observed or calculated exploit price to be seen on exploit markets. A good indicator to understand the monetary effort required for and the popularity of an attack.	CTI Interest Score Our Cyber Threat Intelligence team is monitoring different web sites, mailing lists, exploit markets and social media networks. The CTI Interest Score identifies the interest of attackers and the security community for this specific vulnerability in real-time. A high score indicates an elevated risk to be targeted for this vulnerability.
5.2	$0-$5k	0.60-

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability, which was classified as problematic, was found in Linux Kernel up to 7.3-rc3. Affected by this vulnerability is the function iser_task_rsp of the component IB/iser. Such manipulation of the argument dir/sig_protected leads to null pointer dereference. This vulnerability is documented as CVE-2026-98358. The attack can be executed remotely. There is not any exploit available. You should upgrade the affected component.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Linux Kernel up to 7.3-rc3 and classified as problematic. Affected by this issue is the function iser_task_rsp of the component IB/iser. The manipulation of the argument dir/sig_protected with an unknown input leads to a null pointer dereference vulnerability. Using CWE to declare the problem leads to 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. Impacted is integrity, and availability. CVE summarizes:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: IB/iser: reject a remote invalidation of an unregistered direction A write command whose data is sent entirely as immediate data is not registered. iser_reg_mem_fastreg() takes the DMA key path and leaves rdma_reg[ISER_DIR_OUT].desc at NULL, while iser_dma_map_task_data() has already set dir[ISER_DIR_OUT]. iser_check_remote_inv() looks at dir[] alone and hands the descriptor to iser_inv_desc(), which reads desc->sig_protected. A target that answers such a command with IB_WR_SEND_WITH_INV faults the initiator. Leaving those commands unregistered is deliberate. The same function already terminates the connection when a target sends a remote invalidation the initiator did not ask for. A target that invalidates a direction that was never registered is in the same class, so give it the same answer. Oops: general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0xdffffc0000000004: 0000 [#1] SMP KASAN NOPTI KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000020-0x0000000000000027] CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 40 Comm: kworker/u8:2 Not tainted 7.2.0-rc5-ISERHOST-gf5098b6bae76-dirty #3 PREEMPT(lazy) Hardware name: QEMU Ubuntu 24.04 PC v2 (i440FX + PIIX, arch_caps fix, 1996), BIOS 1.16.3-debian-1.16.3-2 04/01/2014 Workqueue: rxe_wq do_work RIP: 0010:iser_task_rsp+0x6d6/0xec0 Code: 48 c1 ea 03 80 3c 02 00 0f 85 ba 06 00 00 48 8b 9b 78 01 00 00 48 b8 00 00 00 00 00 fc ff df 48 8d 7b 20 48 89 fa 48 c1 ea 03 <0f> b6 04 02 84 c0 74 06 0f 8e 76 06 00 00 80 7b 20 00 0f 84 3d 04 RSP: 0018:ffff88811b008db8 EFLAGS: 00010202 RAX: dffffc0000000000 RBX: 0000000000000000 RCX: 0000000000001848 RDX: 0000000000000004 RSI: 1ffff11021587b12 RDI: 0000000000000020 RBP: ffff88810adc1ae4 R08: ffff888109b7f860 R09: ffffffff90a922c0 R10: ffff88810adc1a1c R11: 000000000000003c R12: ffff888109b7f800 R13: ffff88810adc1acc R14: ffff888109b7f820 R15: 0000000000000000 FS: 0000000000000000(0000) GS:ffff88818a676000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: 00000000005afe2b CR3: 000000010af23005 CR4: 0000000000770ef0 PKRU: 55555554 Call Trace: <IRQ> __ib_process_cq+0xe1/0x390 ib_poll_handler+0x6e/0x200 irq_poll_softirq+0x1df/0x480 ? clockevents_program_event+0x2ba/0x860 ? __pfx_irq_poll_softirq+0x10/0x10 handle_softirqs+0x18e/0x590 ? __pfx_handle_softirqs+0x10/0x10 ? __hrtimer_rearm_deferred+0x156/0x450 do_softirq+0x3b/0x60 </IRQ> <TASK> __local_bh_enable_ip+0x61/0x70 __alloc_skb+0x732/0x890 ? _raw_spin_lock_irqsave+0x85/0xe0 ? __pfx___alloc_skb+0x10/0x10 ? _raw_read_unlock_irqrestore+0x16/0x50 rxe_init_packet+0x16b/0x4f0 prepare_ack_packet+0xb8/0x830 rxe_receiver+0x499/0x9980 ? __pfx_rxe_receiver+0x10/0x10 ? rxe_completer+0x29e5/0x38c0 ? hrtimer_start_range_ns_common+0x75f/0x1730 ? hrtimer_start_range_ns+0xa6/0x2c0 ? __pfx__raw_spin_lock_irqsave+0x10/0x10 ? __pfx_rxe_receiver+0x10/0x10 do_work+0x144/0x470 process_one_work+0x633/0x1030 ? assign_work+0x11d/0x370 worker_thread+0x45b/0xd10 ? __pfx_worker_thread+0x10/0x10 kthread+0x2c6/0x3b0 ? recalc_sigpending+0x15c/0x1e0 ? __pfx_kthread+0x10/0x10 ret_from_fork+0x36e/0x5a0 ? __pfx_ret_from_fork+0x10/0x10 ? __switch_to+0x572/0xdd0 ? __pfx_kthread+0x10/0x10 ret_from_fork_asm+0x1a/0x30 </TASK> Modules linked in: ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]---

The advisory is shared for download at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability is handled as CVE-2026-98358 since 09/25/2026. The exploitation is known to be easy. The attack may be launched remotely. There are known technical details, but no exploit is available. The current price for an exploit might be approx. USD $0-$5k (estimation calculated on 10/06/2026).

Upgrading to version 5.10.271, 5.15.222, 6.1.189, 6.6.158, 6.12.112, 6.18.54, 7.2.8 or 7.3-rc4 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch 198e4db9add54a50cce60a5d80b8f0ee5456b65a/b9e37452915feaa8422af87dea5d0c16a7d1ff13/19ddd4af7fce9200e70882f622011e9dd130f427/9d145a2d8d6f8f2cc460b80df41870819048f2a0/b4d278c91209931199db9c0836dc2e21a7593dad/6ed3ebaff3345837f0528d85bd39ce573c7b9a41/ceecf3f9c322fc6937a66682942a26ad13a34a07/d85f0f0a7c85756fc992c70d869706f19dac9259 is able to eliminate this problem. The best possible mitigation is suggested to be upgrading to the latest version.

Once again VulDB remains the best source for vulnerability data.

Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 5.10.270
• 5.15.221
• 6.1.188
• 6.6.157
• 6.12.111
• 6.18.0
• 6.18.1
• 6.18.2
• 6.18.3
• 6.18.4
• 6.18.5
• 6.18.6
• 6.18.7
• 6.18.8
• 6.18.9
• 6.18.10
• 6.18.11
• 6.18.12
• 6.18.13
• 6.18.14
• 6.18.15
• 6.18.16
• 6.18.17
• 6.18.18
• 6.18.19
• 6.18.20
• 6.18.21
• 6.18.22
• 6.18.23
• 6.18.24
• 6.18.25
• 6.18.26
• 6.18.27
• 6.18.28
• 6.18.29
• 6.18.30
• 6.18.31
• 6.18.32
• 6.18.33
• 6.18.34
• 6.18.35
• 6.18.36
• 6.18.37
• 6.18.38
• 6.18.39
• 6.18.40
• 6.18.41
• 6.18.42
• 6.18.43
• 6.18.44
• 6.18.45
• 6.18.46
• 6.18.47
• 6.18.48
• 6.18.49
• 6.18.50
• 6.18.51
• 6.18.52
• 6.18.53
• 7.2.0
• 7.2.1
• 7.2.2
• 7.2.3
• 7.2.4
• 7.2.5
• 7.2.6
• 7.2.7
• 7.3-rc1
• 7.3-rc2
• 7.3-rc3

License

• open-source

Website

• Vendor: https://www.kernel.org/

CPE 2.3info

• 🔒
• 🔒
• 🔒

CPE 2.2info

• 🔒
• 🔒
• 🔒

CVSSv4info

VulDB Vector: 🔒
VulDB Reliability: 🔍

CVSSv3info

VulDB Meta Base Score: 5.4
VulDB Meta Temp Score: 5.2

VulDB Base Score: 5.4
VulDB Temp Score: 5.2
VulDB Vector: 🔒
VulDB Reliability: 🔍

CVSSv2info

AV	AC	Au	C	I	A
💳	💳	💳	💳	💳	💳
💳	💳	💳	💳	💳	💳
💳	💳	💳	💳	💳	💳

Vector	Complexity	Authentication	Confidentiality	Integrity	Availability
Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock
Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock
Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock

VulDB Base Score: 🔒
VulDB Temp Score: 🔒
VulDB Reliability: 🔍

Exploitinginfo

Class: Null pointer dereference
CWE: CWE-476 / CWE-404
CAPEC: 🔒
ATT&CK: 🔒

Physical: No
Local: No
Remote: Yes

Availability: 🔒
Status: Not defined

EPSS Score: 🔒
EPSS Percentile: 🔒

Price Prediction: 🔍
Current Price Estimation: 🔒

0-Day	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock
Today	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock	Unlock

Threat Intelligenceinfo

Interest: 🔍
Active Actors: 🔍
Active APT Groups: 🔍

Countermeasuresinfo

Recommended: Upgrade
Status: 🔍

0-Day Time: 🔒

Upgrade: Kernel 5.10.271/5.15.222/6.1.189/6.6.158/6.12.112/6.18.54/7.2.8/7.3-rc4
Patch: 198e4db9add54a50cce60a5d80b8f0ee5456b65a/b9e37452915feaa8422af87dea5d0c16a7d1ff13/19ddd4af7fce9200e70882f622011e9dd130f427/9d145a2d8d6f8f2cc460b80df41870819048f2a0/b4d278c91209931199db9c0836dc2e21a7593dad/6ed3ebaff3345837f0528d85bd39ce573c7b9a41/ceecf3f9c322fc6937a66682942a26ad13a34a07/d85f0f0a7c85756fc992c70d869706f19dac9259

Timelineinfo

09/25/2026 CVE reserved
10/06/2026 +11 days Advisory disclosed
10/06/2026 +0 days VulDB entry created
10/06/2026 +0 days VulDB entry last update

Sourcesinfo

Vendor: kernel.org

Advisory: git.kernel.org
Status: Confirmed

CVE: CVE-2026-98358 (🔒)
GCVE (CVE): GCVE-0-2026-98358
GCVE (VulDB): GCVE-100-413996

Entryinfo

Created: 10/06/2026 11:53
Changes: 10/06/2026 11:53 (60)
Complete: 🔍
Cache ID: 216::103

Once again VulDB remains the best source for vulnerability data.

Discussion

Interested in the pricing of exploits?

See the underground prices here!