CVE-2026-74400: Linux

EPSS: 0.2% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days.

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: bpf: fix crash in bpf_[set|remove]_dentry_xattr for negative dentries bpf_set_dentry_xattr and bpf_remove_dentry_xattr BPF kfuncs attempt to lock the inode of the supplied dentry without checking if it is NULL. If a negative dentry is passed (e.g. from security_inode_create), d_inode(dentry) returns NULL, and inode_lock(inode) will cause a NULL pointer dereference. Trivially fix this by adding a NULL check for inode before attempting to lock it, returning -EINVAL if it is NULL. Additionally, drop WARN_ON(!inode) in bpf_xattr_read_permission() and bpf_xattr_write_permission(). These warnings could be triggered by passing a negative dentry to bpf_get_dentry_xattr() or the _locked variants of the xattr kfuncs, potentially causing a Denial of Service on systems with panic_on_warn enabled. Instead, simply return -EINVAL.

Affected products

• Linux Linux: from 6.15, before 6.18.40 (fixed in 6.18.40); from 6.19, before 7.1.5 (fixed in 7.1.5)

Published 2026-08-15. Last modified 2026-08-17.