CVE-2026-99159

A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's ring-buffer subsystem. A local user can cause a Denial of Service (DoS) by crashing the system when interacting with persistent ring buffers. Due to an incorrect sub-buffer index calculation, the kernel leaves an entry uninitialized, resulting in a null pointer dereference when userspace maps the raw trace pipe interface.

This vulnerability is evaluated as a Moderate impact because exploitation requires local access with elevated administrative privileges to configure and map tracing buffers, restricting the potential consequence to a system denial of service. In standard Red Hat Enterprise Linux environments, persistent ring buffer functionality is not enabled by default and access to tracefs interfaces is restricted to privileged accounts. Consequently, unprivileged users cannot trigger the crash, and risk is confined to systems where persistent tracing has been explicitly configured.

The CVSS score(s) listed for this vulnerability do not reflect the associated product's status, and are included for informational purposes to better understand the severity of this vulnerability.