{"answers":{"affected":"","exploited":"There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-98537 in the wild and no public exploit code.","fix":"Apply the vendor's patch.","what":"CVE-2026-98537 is a vulnerability in Linux, published on 18 Oct 2026."},"fix_prompt":"Check this codebase for CVE-2026-98537 and fix it if it is affected.\n\nWhat it is: CVE-2026-98537 is a vulnerability in Linux, published on 18 Oct 2026. \nExploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-98537 in the wild and no public exploit code.\n\nAffected product: Linux. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.\n\nTask:\n1. 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.\n2. 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.\n3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.\n4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.\n5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.\n\nReference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-98537/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-98537/index.md)","id":"CVE-2026-98537","markdown":"https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-98537/index.md","name":"CVE-2026-98537","record":{"aliases":["AZL-108965","BELL-CVE-2026-98537","DEBIAN-CVE-2026-98537","GHSA-6w2x-9phq-jcjc","UBUNTU-CVE-2026-98537"],"analysis":{"component_type":"kernel","fix_type":"patch","impacts":["denial_of_service"],"network_reachable":"unknown","non_default_config":false,"product_category":"Linux kernel","requires_auth":"none","summary":"A NULL pointer dereference in the Linux kernel workqueue subsystem can cause a system crash when a kworker triggers an OOM notification while not executing a work item.","user_interaction":"not_required","vuln_class":"null_dereference"},"analysis_generated_by":"qwen3.8-flash-next","assigner":"Linux","cpe":[],"cvss":{"score":null,"severity":null,"source":null,"vector":null,"version":null},"cwes":[],"description":"In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:\n\nworkqueue: Fix NULL current_pwq deref in flush dependency check\n\ncheck_flush_dependency() uses current_wq_worker() to determine whether\nthe caller is a workqueue worker and then dereferences worker-\u003ecurrent_pwq\nto test whether the current workqueue is WQ_MEM_RECLAIM.\n\ncurrent_wq_worker() only means that %current has PF_WQ_WORKER set. A\nkworker can reach check_flush_dependency() while it is not executing a\nwork item. One such path is worker_thread() acting as the pool manager,\nwhere create_worker() does GFP_KERNEL allocation and the allocation path\ninvokes the OOM notifier. In that state worker-\u003ecurrent_pwq is NULL\nbecause current_pwq is set only by process_one_work() and cleared again\nafter the work function returns.\n\n[  416.760634][  T375] Call trace:\n[  416.760638][  T375]  check_flush_dependency+0x80/0x120 (P)\n[  416.760648][  T375]  __flush_work+0x98/0x224\n[  416.760657][  T375]  flush_work+0x30/0x44\n[  416.760665][  T375]  ...\n[  416.760710][  T375]  blocking_notifier_call_chain+0x58/0xa0\n[  416.760719][  T375]  out_of_memory+0xb4/0x458\n[  416.760730][  T375]  __alloc_pages_may_oom+0x11c/0x1a8\n[  416.760739][  T375]  __alloc_pages_slowpath+0x314/0x46c\n[  416.760746][  T375]  __alloc_frozen_pages_noprof+0x110/0x1a4\n[  416.760753][  T375]  new_slab+0x12c/0x484\n[  416.760759][  T375]  ___slab_alloc+0x7a8/0xc7c\n[  416.760765][  T375]  __slab_alloc+0x74/0xd8\n[  416.760772][  T375]  __kmalloc_cache_node_noprof+0x2ac/0x304\n[  416.760779][  T375]  alloc_worker+0x28/0x60\n[  416.760785][  T375]  create_worker+0x4c/0x20c\n[  416.760790][  T375]  worker_thread+0xe8/0x2b8\n[  416.760796][  T375]  kthread+0x1a8/0x200\n[  416.760805][  T375]  ret_from_fork+0x10/0x20\n\nGuard the WQ_MEM_RECLAIM-worker warning with worker-\u003ecurrent_pwq. If the\nkworker is not currently executing a work item, there is no current\nworkqueue to diagnose with that warning. The PF_MEMALLOC warning is left\nunchanged so explicit reclaim context flushing a !WQ_MEM_RECLAIM target\nis still reported.","ecosystems":[],"exploits":{"exploitdb":0,"first_seen":null,"github_poc":0,"max_poc_stars":null,"metasploit":0,"nuclei":0,"refs":[],"tier":"none_known"},"has_fix":true,"headline":"workqueue: Fix NULL current_pwq deref in flush dependency check","id":"CVE-2026-98537","indexable":true,"kev":null,"kind":"cve","links":{"ecosystem":null,"product":null,"products":[],"type":"null_dereference","year":"2026"},"n_packages":0,"n_references":8,"next":{"headline":"writeback: bound cleanup_offline_cgwb() rescans by rotating scanned inodes","id":"CVE-2026-98538"},"packages":[],"prev":{"headline":"writeback: report a Tasks-RCU quiescent state per cgwb drain pass","id":"CVE-2026-98536"},"products":["Linux"],"published":"2026-10-18","related":[],"sources":[{"class":"attribution","licence":"CVE Terms of Use (MITRE)","name":"CVE List","prefix":"CVE"}],"ssvc":{"automatable":null,"exploitation":null,"technical_impact":null},"state":"PUBLISHED","updated":"2026-10-19","vendors":["Linux"]},"summary":"A NULL pointer dereference in the Linux kernel workqueue subsystem can cause a system crash when a kworker triggers an OOM notification while not executing a work item.","url":"https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-98537/"}