CVE-2025-21670 - NULL Pointer Dereference

Severity

55%

Complexity

18%

Confidentiality

60%

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: vsock/bpf: return early if transport is not assigned Some of the core functions can only be called if the transport has been assigned. As Michal reported, a socket might have the transport at NULL, for example after a failed connect(), causing the following trace: BUG: kernel NULL pointer dereference, address: 00000000000000a0 #PF: supervisor read access in kernel mode #PF: error_code(0x0000) - not-present page PGD 12faf8067 P4D 12faf8067 PUD 113670067 PMD 0 Oops: Oops: 0000 [#1] PREEMPT SMP NOPTI CPU: 15 UID: 0 PID: 1198 Comm: a.out Not tainted 6.13.0-rc2+ RIP: 0010:vsock_connectible_has_data+0x1f/0x40 Call Trace: vsock_bpf_recvmsg+0xca/0x5e0 sock_recvmsg+0xb9/0xc0 __sys_recvfrom+0xb3/0x130 __x64_sys_recvfrom+0x20/0x30 do_syscall_64+0x93/0x180 entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe+0x76/0x7e So we need to check the `vsk->transport` in vsock_bpf_recvmsg(), especially for connected sockets (stream/seqpacket) as we already do in __vsock_connectible_recvmsg().

CVSS 3.1 Base Score 5.5. CVSS Attack Vector: local. CVSS Attack Complexity: low. CVSS Vector: (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H).

Demo Examples

NULL Pointer Dereference

CWE-476

While there are no complete fixes aside from conscientious programming, the following steps will go a long way to ensure that NULL pointer dereferences do not occur.


               
}
/* make use of pointer1 *//* ... */

If you are working with a multithreaded or otherwise asynchronous environment, ensure that proper locking APIs are used to lock before the if statement; and unlock when it has finished.

NULL Pointer Dereference

CWE-476

This example takes an IP address from a user, verifies that it is well formed and then looks up the hostname and copies it into a buffer.


               
}
strcpy(hostname, hp->h_name);/*routine that ensures user_supplied_addr is in the right format for conversion */

If an attacker provides an address that appears to be well-formed, but the address does not resolve to a hostname, then the call to gethostbyaddr() will return NULL. Since the code does not check the return value from gethostbyaddr (CWE-252), a NULL pointer dereference would then occur in the call to strcpy().

Note that this example is also vulnerable to a buffer overflow (see CWE-119).

NULL Pointer Dereference

CWE-476

In the following code, the programmer assumes that the system always has a property named "cmd" defined. If an attacker can control the program's environment so that "cmd" is not defined, the program throws a NULL pointer exception when it attempts to call the trim() method.


               
cmd = cmd.trim();

NULL Pointer Dereference

CWE-476

This application has registered to handle a URL when sent an intent:


               
}......
}
}
int length = URL.length();
...

The application assumes the URL will always be included in the intent. When the URL is not present, the call to getStringExtra() will return null, thus causing a null pointer exception when length() is called.

Stay updated

ExploitPedia is constantly evolving. Sign up to receive a notification when we release additional functionality.

Get in touch

If you'd like to report a bug or have any suggestions for improvements then please do get in touch with us using this form. We will get back to you as soon as we can.