CVE-2026-45965 apparmor: fix invalid deref of rawdata when export_binary is unset

Medium 5.5 Published Updated

A local attacker can cause a kernel crash by replacing an AppArmor profile when binary export is disabled, leading to a null pointer dereference.

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

What is CVE-2026-45965?

CVE-2026-45965 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 27 May 2026. 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:

apparmor: fix invalid deref of rawdata when export_binary is unset

If the export_binary parameter is disabled on runtime, profiles that were loaded before that will still have their rawdata stored in apparmorfs, with a symbolic link to the rawdata on the policy directory. When one of those profiles are replaced, the rawdata is set to NULL, but when trying to resolve the symbolic links to rawdata for that profile, it will try to dereference profile->rawdata->name when profile->rawdata is now NULL causing an oops. Fix it by checking if rawdata is set.

[ 168.653080] BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 0000000000000088 [ 168.657420] #PF: supervisor read access in kernel mode [ 168.660619] #PF: error_code(0x0000) - not-present page [ 168.663613] PGD 0 P4D 0 [ 168.665450] Oops: Oops: 0000 [#1] SMP NOPTI [ 168.667836] CPU: 1 UID: 0 PID: 1729 Comm: ls Not tainted 6.19.0-rc7+ #3 PREEMPT(voluntary) [ 168.672308] Hardware name: QEMU Ubuntu 24.04 PC (i440FX + PIIX, 1996), BIOS 1.16.3-debian-1.16.3-2 04/01/2014 [ 168.679327] RIP: 0010:rawdata_get_link_base.isra.0+0x23/0x330 [ 168.682768] Code: 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 0f 1f 44 00 00 55 48 89 e5 41 57 41 56 41 55 41 54 53 48 83 ec 18 48 89 55 d0 48 85 ff 0f 84 e3 01 00 00 <48> 83 3c 25 88 00 00 00 00 0f 84 d4 01 00 00 49 89 f6 49 89 cc e8 [ 168.689818] RSP: 0018:ffffcdcb8200fb80 EFLAGS: 00010282 [ 168.690871] RAX: ffffffffaee74ec0 RBX: 0000000000000000 RCX: ffffffffb0120158 [ 168.692251] RDX: ffffcdcb8200fbe0 RSI: ffff88c187c9fa80 RDI: ffff88c186c98a80 [ 168.693593] RBP: ffffcdcb8200fbc0 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: 0000000000000000 [ 168.694941] R10: 0000000000000000 R11: 0000000000000000 R12: ffff88c186c98a80 [ 168.696289] R13: 00007fff005aaa20 R14: 0000000000000080 R15: ffff88c188f4fce0 [ 168.697637] FS: 0000790e81c58280(0000) GS:ffff88c20a957000(0000) knlGS:0000000000000000 [ 168.699227] CS: 0010 DS: 0000 ES: 0000 CR0: 0000000080050033 [ 168.700349] CR2: 0000000000000088 CR3: 000000012fd3e000 CR4: 0000000000350ef0 [ 168.701696] Call Trace: [ 168.702325] <TASK> [ 168.702995] rawdata_get_link_data+0x1c/0x30 [ 168.704145] vfs_readlink+0xd4/0x160 [ 168.705152] do_readlinkat+0x114/0x180 [ 168.706214] __x64_sys_readlink+0x1e/0x30 [ 168.708653] x64_sys_call+0x1d77/0x26b0 [ 168.709525] do_syscall_64+0x81/0x500 [ 168.710348] ? do_statx+0x72/0xb0 [ 168.711109] ? putname+0x3e/0x80 [ 168.711845] ? __x64_sys_statx+0xb7/0x100 [ 168.712711] ? x64_sys_call+0x10fc/0x26b0 [ 168.713577] ? do_syscall_64+0xbf/0x500 [ 168.714412] ? do_user_addr_fault+0x1d2/0x8d0 [ 168.715404] ? irqentry_exit+0xb2/0x740 [ 168.716359] ? exc_page_fault+0x90/0x1b0 [ 168.717307] entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e

Weakness: CWE-476

Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-45965?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2026-45965?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Is CVE-2026-45965 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-45965 in the wild and no public exploit code.

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

Also known as BELL-CVE-2026-45965, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-45965, GHSA-8pgm-3pm8-2qcc, ROOT-OS-DEBIAN-11-CVE-2026-45965, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2204-CVE-2026-45965, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2404-CVE-2026-45965 and 1 more.

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