CVE-2026-45845: linux NULL Pointer Dereference

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2026-45845 is a medium (CVSS 5.5) NULL Pointer Dereference vulnerability in linux. EPSS estimates a 0.15% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 4% of scored vulnerabilities.

Timeline

1. 27-05-2026
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 14-06-2026
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net/sched: taprio: fix NULL pointer dereference in class dump When a TAPRIO child qdisc is deleted via RTM_DELQDISC, taprio_graft() is called with new == NULL and stores NULL into q->qdiscs[cl - 1]. Subsequent RTM_GETTCLASS dump operations walk all classes via taprio_walk() and call taprio_dump_class(), which calls taprio_leaf() returning the NULL pointer, then dereferences it to read child->handle, causing a kernel NULL pointer dereference. The bug is reachable with namespace-scoped CAP_NET_ADMIN on any kernel with CONFIG_NET_SCH_TAPRIO enabled. On systems with unprivileged user namespaces enabled, an unprivileged local user can trigger a kernel panic by creating a taprio qdisc inside a new network namespace, grafting an explicit child qdisc, deleting it, and requesting a class dump. The RTM_GETTCLASS dump itself requires no capability. Oops: general protection fault, probably for non-canonical address 0xdffffc0000000007: 0000 [#1] SMP KASAN NOPTI KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000038-0x000000000000003f] RIP: 0010:taprio_dump_class (net/sched/sch_taprio.c:2478) Call Trace: <TASK> tc_fill_tclass (net/sched/sch_api.c:1966) qdisc_class_dump (net/sched/sch_api.c:2326) taprio_walk (net/sched/sch_taprio.c:2514) tc_dump_tclass_qdisc (net/sched/sch_api.c:2352) tc_dump_tclass_root (net/sched/sch_api.c:2370) tc_dump_tclass (net/sched/sch_api.c:2431) rtnl_dumpit (net/core/rtnetlink.c:6864) netlink_dump (net/netlink/af_netlink.c:2325) rtnetlink_rcv_msg (net/core/rtnetlink.c:6959) netlink_rcv_skb (net/netlink/af_netlink.c:2550) </TASK> Fix this by substituting &noop_qdisc when new is NULL in taprio_graft(), a common pattern used by other qdiscs (e.g., multiq_graft()) to ensure the q->qdiscs[] slots are never NULL. This makes control-plane dump paths safe without requiring individual NULL checks. Since the data-plane paths (taprio_enqueue and taprio_dequeue_from_txq) previously had explicit NULL guards that would drop/skip the packet cleanly, update those checks to test for &noop_qdisc instead. Without this, packets would reach taprio_enqueue_one() which increments the root qdisc's qlen and backlog before calling the child's enqueue; noop_qdisc drops the packet but those counters are never rolled back, permanently inflating the root qdisc's statistics. After this change *old can be a valid qdisc, NULL, or &noop_qdisc. Only call qdisc_put(*old) in the first case to avoid decreasing noop_qdisc's refcount, which was never increased.

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