NULL pointer dereference in Linux

CVE-2026-45959

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 { ... } **`.

Published · last modified .

CVSS v3 metric

CVSS v3 base score 7.8 (High). Vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H.

EPSS exploit prediction

EPSS: 0.001 (2.0th percentile), scored .

Very low probability of exploitation in the next 30 days; routine patching cadence is appropriate. 2nd percentile — 2.0% of CVEs in the catalogue have a lower EPSS than this one. How to read EPSS.

EPSS trend (30 days)EPSS over the last 30 days for CVE-2026-45959: held from 0.001 to 0.001.

EPSS over last 30 days · oldest: 0.001 · newest: 0.001 · change: 0.000

Affected products

Weakness classification (CWE)

References

Frequently asked questions

What is CVE-2026-45959?
CVE-2026-45959 is a high-severity vulnerability in Linux, classified under NULL Pointer Dereference. CVSS score: 7.8/10. Published 2026-05-27.
How severe is CVE-2026-45959?
High severity. CVSS v3 base score is 7.8 out of 10.