CVE-2026-45959: linux NULL Pointer Dereference

Vulnerability summary

CVE-2026-45959 is a high (CVSS 7.8) NULL Pointer Dereference vulnerability in linux. EPSS estimates a 0.13% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 2.1% of scored vulnerabilities.

Timeline

1. 27-05-2026
   PublishedVulnerability first disclosed.
2. 19-10-2026
   Last modifiedVulnerability information updated.

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: crypto: ccp - Fix a crash due to incorrect cleanup usage of kfree Annotating a local pointer variable, which will be assigned with the kmalloc-family functions, with the `__cleanup(kfree)` attribute will make the address of the local variable, rather than the address returned by kmalloc, passed to kfree directly and lead to a crash due to invalid deallocation of stack address. According to other places in the repo, the correct usage should be `__free(kfree)`. The code coincidentally compiled because the parameter type `void *` of kfree is compatible with the desired type `struct { ... } **`.

• CWE-476NULL Pointer DereferenceThe product dereferences a pointer that it expects to be valid but is NULL.
• CWE-787Out-of-bounds WriteThe product writes data past the end, or before the beginning, of the intended buffer.