# CVE-2024-26998: serial: core: Clearing the circular buffer before NULLifying it

> A race condition in the Linux kernel serial core allows asynchronous callbacks to dereference a NULL pointer, causing a system crash.

- **Severity:** Medium 5.5 (`CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H`)
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Any signed-in user
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 1 May 2024
- **Updated:** 23 May 2026
- **Also known as:** BELL-CVE-2024-26998, DEBIAN-CVE-2024-26998, GHSA-r65x-4xhj-7g65, UBUNTU-CVE-2024-26998

## What is CVE-2024-26998?

CVE-2024-26998 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 1 May 2024. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

### Official description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

serial: core: Clearing the circular buffer before NULLifying it

The circular buffer is NULLified in uart_tty_port_shutdown()
under the spin lock. However, the PM or other timer based callbacks
may still trigger after this event without knowning that buffer pointer
is not valid. Since the serial code is a bit inconsistent in checking
the buffer state (some rely on the head-tail positions, some on the
buffer pointer), it's better to have both aligned, i.e. buffer pointer
to be NULL and head-tail possitions to be the same, meaning it's empty.
This will prevent asynchronous calls to dereference NULL pointer as
reported recently in 8250 case:

  BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 00000cf5
  Workqueue: pm pm_runtime_work
  EIP: serial8250_tx_chars (drivers/tty/serial/8250/8250_port.c:1809)
  ...
  ? serial8250_tx_chars (drivers/tty/serial/8250/8250_port.c:1809)
  __start_tx (drivers/tty/serial/8250/8250_port.c:1551)
  serial8250_start_tx (drivers/tty/serial/8250/8250_port.c:1654)
  serial_port_runtime_suspend (include/linux/serial_core.h:667 drivers/tty/serial/serial_port.c:63)
  __rpm_callback (drivers/base/power/runtime.c:393)
  ? serial_port_remove (drivers/tty/serial/serial_port.c:50)
  rpm_suspend (drivers/base/power/runtime.c:447)

The proposed change will prevent ->start_tx() to be called during
suspend on shut down port.

Weakness: CWE-476 (NULL Pointer Dereference)

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2024-26998?

It affects 1 product.


Products: Linux kernel.

## How do I fix CVE-2024-26998?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2024-26998 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2024-26998 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

- [CVE-2026-53266](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53266/): Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-6282](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-6282/): Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation (high 8.8, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2022-0185](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2022-0185/): Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2013-2094](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2013-2094/): Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation (high 8.4, exploited in the wild)
- [CVE-2026-53362](https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-53362/): Linux Kernel Unspecified (high 7.8, exploited in the wild)

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2024-26998 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2024-26998 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 1 May 2024. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2024-26998 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Linux kernel. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-26998/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-26998/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2024-26998
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-26998
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2024-26998

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2024-26998/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.