Kernel crash via unchecked allocation failure
Published May 1, 2024 · Updated May 11, 2026
NULL pointer dereference in the xHCI USB host driver in Linux allows local users to crash the kernel during DMA mapping. xhci_map_urb_for_dma passes a null temporary buffer to sg_pcopy_to_buffer after kzalloc_node fails, causing memcpy to dereference null. Reachability requires local low-privileged access and an xHCI scatter-gather transfer during allocation failure; the documented consequence is a kernel crash.
Summary
What happened
NULL pointer dereference in the xHCI USB host driver in Linux allows local users to crash the kernel during DMA mapping. xhci_map_urb_for_dma passes a null temporary buffer to sg_pcopy_to_buffer after kzalloc_node fails, causing memcpy to dereference null. Reachability requires local low-privileged access and an xHCI scatter-gather transfer during allocation failure; the documented consequence is a kernel crash.
The record
- CVE
- CVE-2024-26964
- Published
- May 1, 2024
- Updated
- May 11, 2026
- Vendor
- The Linux Kernel Organization
- Product
- Linux
- Classifications
- CWE-476, T1499.004
- Attack vector
- local
- Privileges
- authenticated
Timeline
How it unfolded
- May 1, 2024CVE publishedPublication date reported by the CVE source.
- May 11, 2026Record updatedLatest update available in the CVE record.
Exploitability
Present is not the same as exploitable
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Is a vulnerable build present?
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- Affected versionversion=2017a1e58472a27e532b9644b4a61dfe18f6baac <4a49d24fdec0a802aa686a567a3989a9fdf4e5dd
- Affected versionversion=2017a1e58472a27e532b9644b4a61dfe18f6baac <620b6cf2f1a270f48d38e6b8ce199c1acb3e90f4
- Affected versionversion=2017a1e58472a27e532b9644b4a61dfe18f6baac <7b6cc33593d7ccfc3011b290849cfa899db46757
- Affected versionversion=2017a1e58472a27e532b9644b4a61dfe18f6baac <962300a360d24c5be5a188cda48da58a37e4304d
- Affected versionversion=2017a1e58472a27e532b9644b4a61dfe18f6baac <b2c898469dfc388f619c6c972a28466cbb1442ea
- Affected versionversion=2017a1e58472a27e532b9644b4a61dfe18f6baac <be95cc6d71dfd0cba66e3621c65413321b398052
- Affected versionversion=5.11
What conditions does exploitation require?
What is affected?
Published CVSS scores
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Attacks
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Weakness, pattern, technique
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Technologies
Your stack
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Your stack
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