CVE-2026-40197: linuxcontainers incus NULL Pointer Dereference

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2026-40197 is a high (CVSS 7.1) NULL Pointer Dereference vulnerability in linuxcontainers incus. EPSS estimates a 0.44% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 37.2% of scored vulnerabilities. 1 public exploit is recorded.

Timeline

1. 06-05-2026
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 07-05-2026
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

Incus is a system container and virtual machine manager. In versions before 7.0.0, missing validation logic in the storage volume import logic allows an authenticated user with access to the storage volume feature to cause the Incus daemon to crash. The custom volume backup import subsystem contains a nil-pointer dereference vulnerability during import operations. In the snapshot import loop, the daemon iterates over entries from `srcBackup.Config.VolumeSnapshots` and assumes that each slice element is initialized, then dereferences fields such as `Name`, `Config`, `Description`, `CreatedAt`, and `ExpiresAt` without first validating the element itself. Because the yaml unmarshaler accepts explicit null array elements from an attacker-controlled index.yaml and converts them into nil pointers inside the slice, an attacker can supply a backup archive containing a null entry in the volume_snapshots array. This causes a nil-pointer dereference during custom volume import and terminates the daemon, resulting in denial of service on the affected node. Repeated use of this issue can be used to keep Incus offline, causing a denial of service. This issue is fixed in version 7.0.0.

• CWE-476NULL Pointer DereferenceThe product dereferences a pointer that it expects to be valid but is NULL.