Executive brief
A vulnerability was identified in the Linux kernel's networking and file system components (rxrpc and AFS). The issue involves improper error handling when looking up network peers, which could lead to system instability or crashes. This affects systems using the Andrew File System (AFS) for distributed file storage.
Technical details
A vulnerability exists in the Linux kernel's rxrpc and AFS implementations due to missing error pointer checks. The function rxrpc_kernel_lookup_peer() can return error pointers (encoded via ERR_PTR) in addition to NULL, but calling functions in the AFS subsystem only checked for NULL. This mismatch in error handling can lead to the kernel attempting to dereference an invalid pointer. The fix involves updating rxrpc_kernel_lookup_peer() to consistently return error codes (like -ENOMEM) and updating AFS callers to use IS_ERR() and PTR_ERR() macros for validation. This is primarily a local availability issue that could result in a kernel oops or panic.
Affected products
- Linux Linux Kernel Fixed in 4245a79003adf30e67f8e9060915bd05cb31d142, 54331c5dcc6d97683d7ca2788e7ef9c9505e1477, d55fa7cd4b19ba91b34b307d769c149e56ad0a75
Timeline
- 2026-03-05: other: Initial patch authored
- 2026-05-08: disclosed: CVE published