CVE-2026-98416
Description
A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's Texas Instruments K3 UDMA (Unified Direct Memory Access) driver. This vulnerability can lead to a Denial of Service (DoS) caused by a null pointer dereference when freeing resources during a failed channel request. Under resource-exhaustion conditions, the error-handling routine attempts to release unallocated flows without verifying their allocation status, triggering a kernel crash.
Statement
A moderate-impact NULL pointer dereference flaw was found in the Linux kernel's Texas Instruments K3 UDMA glue driver (drivers/dma/ti/k3-udma-glue.c). If the devm_kcalloc() allocation for rx_chn->flows fails during a receive channel request, the error-handling path calls k3_udma_glue_release_rx_chn(), which unconditionally dereferences the unallocated, NULL flows pointer in k3_udma_glue_release_rx_flow(), causing a kernel crash and a denial of service. Exploiting this flaw requires a memory-allocation failure (resource exhaustion) during a channel request on Texas Instruments K3 UDMA-based hardware, and it affects only system availability; Red Hat therefore rated the impact as Moderate (CVSS 3.1 score 4.1, AV:L/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H). Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 (kernel) and Red Hat In-Vehicle OS 2 (kernel and kernel-ivos-qualcomm) are affected, with the fix currently deferred for these streams: because the flaw is only triggerable under rare allocation-failure conditions by a locally privileged actor on the affected hardware, the residual risk is considered low, and the fix will be shipped in a future planned kernel update. Earlier Red Hat Enterprise Linux releases, the kernel-rt packages, and the OpenShift Container Platform RHCOS kernels are not affected because the vulnerable code is not present in those streams.
Mitigation
Mitigation for this issue is either not available or the currently available options do not meet the Red Hat Product Security criteria comprising ease of use and deployment, applicability to widespread installation base, or stability.
Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) Score Details
Info alert:Important note
CVSS scores for open source components depend on vendor-specific factors (e.g. version or build chain). Therefore, Red Hat's score and impact rating can be different from NVD and other vendors. Red Hat remains the authoritative CVE Naming Authority (CNA) source for its products and services (see Red Hat classifications).
The following CVSS metrics and score provided are preliminary and subject to review.
CVSS v3 Score Breakdown
| Red Hat | NVD | cve.org | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base Score | 4.1 | N/A | N/A |
| Attack Vector | Local | N/A | N/A |
| Attack Complexity | High | N/A | N/A |
| Privileges Required | High | N/A | N/A |
| User Interaction | None | N/A | N/A |
| Scope | Unchanged | N/A | N/A |
| Confidentiality | None | N/A | N/A |
| Integrity Impact | None | N/A | N/A |
| Availability Impact | High | N/A | N/A |
Vector
Red Hat: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:H/PR:H/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Availability
Technical Impact: DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart
NULL pointer dereferences usually result in the failure of the process unless exception handling (on some platforms) is available and implemented. Even when exception handling is being used, it can still be very difficult to return the software to a safe state of operation.
Integrity,Confidentiality
Technical Impact: Execute Unauthorized Code or Commands; Read Memory; Modify Memory
In rare circumstances, when NULL is equivalent to the 0x0 memory address and privileged code can access it, then writing or reading memory is possible, which may lead to code execution.
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