Executive brief
A vulnerability was identified in the Linux kernel's digital video test driver (vidtv). This flaw can cause the system to crash (General Protection Fault) when the driver fails to properly allocate memory for certain video stream identifiers. While this primarily affects testing environments, it could lead to a local denial-of-service where the system becomes unresponsive or reboots.
Technical details
A NULL pointer dereference exists in the vidtv_mux_push_si function within the Linux kernel's media test drivers. The root cause is a failure in vidtv_mux_pid_ctx_init to validate the return value of vidtv_mux_create_pid_ctx_once() when initializing PMT section PIDs. If memory allocation fails, the PID context remains NULL, but the initialization returns success. Subsequent calls to vidtv_mux_get_pid_ctx() return NULL, which is then dereferenced in vidtv_mux_push_si without a check, resulting in a General Protection Fault. The fix introduces proper error checking during initialization and defensive NULL checks before dereferencing PID contexts.
Affected products
- Linux Linux kernel f90cf6079bf67
Timeline
- 2026-03-17: other: Patch authored
- 2026-07-19: disclosed: CVE published
References
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/232e4b313ea342672edf8947e067c0de4328405b
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/353d9578951dd38bc9679308f5b618ceed1f20fa
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/455bc12e7b73ab5a2dfcb47822e91e772bc6c42e
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/6df7e16d4f742c80add58995a6e69385b97aa9e6
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/7d8bf3d8f91073f4db347ed3aa6302b56107499c
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b28b12be6e8910489e6800ed93ea4d41dfe19683
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/cd923dadefadb9671b5ac341b672ff424d429c39