CVE-2026-43086: linux NULL Pointer Dereference

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2026-43086 is a medium (CVSS 5.5) NULL Pointer Dereference vulnerability in linux. EPSS estimates a 0.16% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 5% of scored vulnerabilities.

Timeline

1. 06-05-2026
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 11-05-2026
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ipvs: fix NULL deref in ip_vs_add_service error path When ip_vs_bind_scheduler() succeeds in ip_vs_add_service(), the local variable sched is set to NULL. If ip_vs_start_estimator() subsequently fails, the out_err cleanup calls ip_vs_unbind_scheduler(svc, sched) with sched == NULL. ip_vs_unbind_scheduler() passes the cur_sched NULL check (because svc->scheduler was set by the successful bind) but then dereferences the NULL sched parameter at sched->done_service, causing a kernel panic at offset 0x30 from NULL. Oops: general protection fault, [..] [#1] PREEMPT SMP KASAN NOPTI KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000030-0x0000000000000037] RIP: 0010:ip_vs_unbind_scheduler (net/netfilter/ipvs/ip_vs_sched.c:69) Call Trace: <TASK> ip_vs_add_service.isra.0 (net/netfilter/ipvs/ip_vs_ctl.c:1500) do_ip_vs_set_ctl (net/netfilter/ipvs/ip_vs_ctl.c:2809) nf_setsockopt (net/netfilter/nf_sockopt.c:102) [..] Fix by simply not clearing the local sched variable after a successful bind. ip_vs_unbind_scheduler() already detects whether a scheduler is installed via svc->scheduler, and keeping sched non-NULL ensures the error path passes the correct pointer to both ip_vs_unbind_scheduler() and ip_vs_scheduler_put(). While the bug is older, the problem popups in more recent kernels (6.2), when the new error path is taken after the ip_vs_start_estimator() call.

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