CVE-2026-74418 dma-fence: Fix potential tracepoint null pointer dereferences
A null pointer dereference in Linux kernel DMA fence tracepoints can cause a system crash, requiring local access to exploit.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2026-74418?
CVE-2026-74418 is a vulnerability in Linux, published on 15 Aug 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:
dma-fence: Fix potential tracepoint null pointer dereferences
Trace_dma_fence_signaled, trace_dma_fence_wait_end and trace_dma_fence_destroy can all currently dereference a null fence->ops pointer after it has been reset on fence signalling.
Lets use the safe string getters for most tracepoints to avoid this class of a problem, while for the signal tracepoint we move it to before ops are cleared to avoid losing the driver and timeline name information. Apart from moving it we also need to add a new tracepoint class to bypass the safe name getters since the signaled bit is already set.
For dma_fence_init we also need to use the new tracepoint class since the rcu read lock is not held there, and we can do the same for the enable signaling since there we are certain the fence cannot be signaled while we are holding the lock and have even validated the fence->ops.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-74418?
How do I fix CVE-2026-74418?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Is CVE-2026-74418 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-74418 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2026-74418, GHSA-34jm-85m6-f5hv, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-74418.