Linux Kernel up to 7.3-rc4 Virtio GPU Driver virtgpu_submit.c virtio_gpu_fence_event_create null pointer dereference

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5.3	$0-$5k	2.22-

Summaryinfo

A vulnerability has been found in Linux Kernel up to 6.6.157/6.12.111/6.18.54/7.2.8/7.3-rc4 and classified as critical. This affects the function virtio_gpu_fence_event_create of the file drivers/gpu/drm/virtio/virtgpu_submit.c of the component Virtio GPU Driver. This manipulation causes null pointer dereference. This vulnerability is registered as CVE-2026-98508. The attack needs to be launched locally. No exploit is available. The affected component should be upgraded.

Detailsinfo

A vulnerability was found in Linux Kernel up to 6.6.157/6.12.111/6.18.54/7.2.8/7.3-rc4. It has been declared as critical. Affected by this vulnerability is the function virtio_gpu_fence_event_create of the file drivers/gpu/drm/virtio/virtgpu_submit.c of the component Virtio GPU Driver. The manipulation with an unknown input leads to a null pointer dereference vulnerability. The CWE definition for the vulnerability is 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. As an impact it is known to affect availability. The summary by CVE is:

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: drm/virtio: fix NULL pointer dereference on fence allocation failure virtio_gpu_fence_alloc() can fail due to memory pressure and return NULL, but its caller like virtio_gpu_init_submit() never checks it. Later, virtio_gpu_init_submit() passes the NULL fence to virtio_gpu_fence_event_create(), which unconditionally dereferences it. Found when fuzzing the virtio driver with Syzkaller: Oops: general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0xdffffc0000000012: 0000 [#1] SMP KASAN NOPTI KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000090-0x0000000000000097] CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 9991 Comm: syz.0.121 Not tainted 7.2.0 #4 PREEMPT(full) Hardware name: QEMU Standard PC (Q35 + ICH9, 2009), BIOS rel-1.17.0-0-gb52ca86e094d-prebuilt.qemu.org 04/01/2014 RIP: 0010:virtio_gpu_fence_event_create drivers/gpu/drm/virtio/virtgpu_submit.c:295 [inline] RIP: 0010:virtio_gpu_init_submit drivers/gpu/drm/virtio/virtgpu_submit.c:398 [inline] RIP: 0010:virtio_gpu_execbuffer_ioctl+0xc78/0x1aa0 drivers/gpu/drm/virtio/virtgpu_submit.c:505 Code: 85 ed 0f 85 21 09 00 00 e8 05 5a c9 fb 48 8b 44 24 10 48 8d b8 90 00 00 00 48 b8 00 00 00 00 00 fc ff df 48 89 fa 48 c1 ea 03 <80> 3c 02 00 0f 85 9a 0d 00 00 48 8b 44 24 10 4c 89 b0 90 00 00 00 RSP: 0018:ffffc900039dfad0 EFLAGS: 00010216 RAX: dffffc0000000000 RBX: ffffc900039dfdd8 RCX: ffffffff85f6fd3d RDX: 0000000000000012 RSI: ffffffff85f6fd4b RDI: 0000000000000090 RBP: 0000000000000000 R0virtio_gpu_virgl_process_cmd: ctrl 0x102, error 0x1203 R10: 0000000000000000 R11: 0000000000000000 R12: ffff8880132c4000 R13: 0000000000000000 R14: ffff888073b6c700 R15: 000000000000003b FS: 00007fab480b96c0(0000) GS:ffff8880eb6e9000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 CR2: 00007effbf5e55a8 CR3: 0000000048d19000 CR4: 0000000000350ef0 Call Trace: <TASK> drm_ioctl_kernel+0x1f4/0x3e0 drivers/gpu/drm/drm_ioctl.c:817 drm_ioctl+0x5f4/0xc70 drivers/gpu/drm/drm_ioctl.c:914 vfs_ioctl fs/ioctl.c:51 [inline] __do_sys_ioctl fs/ioctl.c:597 [inline] __se_sys_ioctl fs/ioctl.c:583 [inline] __x64_sys_ioctl+0x18e/0x210 fs/ioctl.c:583 do_syscall_x64 arch/x86/entry/syscall_64.c:63 [inline] do_syscall_64+0x116/0x800 arch/x86/entry/syscall_64.c:94 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x77/0x7f RIP: 0033:0x7fab471a82bd Code: ff c3 66 2e 0f 1f 84 00 00 00 00 00 90 f3 0f 1e fa 48 89 f8 48 89 f7 48 89 d6 48 89 ca 4d 89 c2 4d 89 c8 4c 8b 4c 24 08 0f 05 <48> 3d 01 f0 ff ff 73 01 c3 48 c7 c1 b0 ff ff ff f7 d8 64 89 01 48 RSP: 002b:00007fab480b9018 EFLAGS: 00000246 ORIG_RAX: 0000000000000010 RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 00007fab47435fa0 RCX: 00007fab471a82bd RDX: 00002000000000c0 RSI: 00000000c0406442 RDI: 0000000000000003 RBP: 00007fab480b9080 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: 0000000000000000 R10: 0000000000000000 R11: 0000000000000246 R12: 0000000000000001 R13: 00007fab47436038 R14: 00007fab47435fa0 R15: 00007ffe85ab0740 </TASK> Modules linked in: ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]--- RIP: 0010:virtio_gpu_fence_event_create drivers/gpu/drm/virtio/virtgpu_submit.c:295 [inline] RIP: 0010:virtio_gpu_init_submit drivers/gpu/drm/virtio/virtgpu_submit.c:398 [inline] RIP: 0010:virtio_gpu_execbuffer_ioctl+0xc78/0x1aa0 drivers/gpu/drm/virtio/virtgpu_submit.c:505 Code: 85 ed 0f 85 21 09 00 00 e8 05 5a c9 fb 48 8b 44 24 10 48 8d b8 90 00 00 00 48 b8 00 00 00 00 00 fc ff df 48 89 fa 48 c1 ea 03 <80> 3c 02 00 0f 85 9a 0d 00 00 48 8b 44 24 10 4c 89 b0 90 00 00 00 RSP: 0018:ffffc900039dfad0 EFLAGS: 00010216 RAX: dffffc0000000000 RBX: ffffc900039dfdd8 RCX: ffffffff85f6fd3d RDX: 0000000000000012 RSI: ffffffff85f6fd4b RDI: 0000000000000090 RBP: 0000000000000000 R08: 0000000000000005 R09: 0000000000000000 R10: 0000000000000000 R11: 0000000000000000 R12: ffff8880132c4000 R13: 0000000000000000 R14: ffff888073b6c700 R15: 000000000000003b FS: 00007fab480b96c0(0000) GS:ffff888098ae9000(0000) knlGS:00000000 ---truncated---

It is possible to read the advisory at git.kernel.org. This vulnerability is known as CVE-2026-98508 since 09/25/2026. The exploitation appears to be easy. Attacking locally is a requirement. Technical details of the vulnerability are known, but there is no available exploit.

Upgrading to version 6.6.158, 6.12.112, 6.18.55, 7.2.9 or 7.3-rc5 eliminates this vulnerability. Applying the patch 9571ab7493561afb4624d69572a7ebb67d76d10f/a8b83ed4a4b1d04c756f53e375e86d3881f66e72/f2f1683955b95c9b958069da3050f7e8e129ff88/ecced0076b700b5896e52af10d0776be8be36b0d/846b3c64fe3e77d9db20a7e3e62dbbb637c773e1 is able to eliminate this problem. The best possible mitigation is suggested to be upgrading to the latest version.

Be aware that VulDB is the high quality source for vulnerability data.

Productinfo

Type

• Operating System

Vendor

• Linux

Name

• Kernel

Version

• 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
• 6.18.54
• 7.2.0
• 7.2.1
• 7.2.2
• 7.2.3
• 7.2.4
• 7.2.5
• 7.2.6
• 7.2.7
• 7.2.8
• 7.3-rc1
• 7.3-rc2
• 7.3-rc3
• 7.3-rc4

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: 5.5
VulDB Meta Temp Score: 5.3

VulDB Base Score: 5.5
VulDB Temp Score: 5.3
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: Partially
Local: Yes
Remote: No

Availability: 🔒
Status: Not defined
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 6.6.158/6.12.112/6.18.55/7.2.9/7.3-rc5
Patch: 9571ab7493561afb4624d69572a7ebb67d76d10f/a8b83ed4a4b1d04c756f53e375e86d3881f66e72/f2f1683955b95c9b958069da3050f7e8e129ff88/ecced0076b700b5896e52af10d0776be8be36b0d/846b3c64fe3e77d9db20a7e3e62dbbb637c773e1

Timelineinfo

09/25/2026 CVE reserved
10/18/2026 +23 days Advisory disclosed
10/18/2026 +0 days VulDB entry created
10/18/2026 +0 days VulDB entry last update

Sourcesinfo

Vendor: kernel.org

Advisory: git.kernel.org
Status: Confirmed

CVE: CVE-2026-98508 (🔒)
GCVE (CVE): GCVE-0-2026-98508
GCVE (VulDB): GCVE-100-422215

Entryinfo

Created: 10/18/2026 21:05
Changes: 10/18/2026 21:05 (60)
Complete: 🔍
Cache ID: 216::103

Be aware that VulDB is the high quality source for vulnerability data.

Discussion

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