published September 16, 2026
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
s390/vfio-ap: Fix NULL deref in status_show() during queue probe
When vfio_ap_mdev_probe_queue() creates the sysfs attribute group,
the queue's driver data has not yet been set. A concurrent read of
the 'status' attribute can therefore call dev_get_drvdata() and
get NULL, which is then passed directly to
vfio_ap_mdev_for_queue() where q->apqn is unconditionally
dereferenced, causing a NULL pointer dereference.
Fix this by acquiring the update locks before calling
sysfs_create_group(). The status_show() function acquires
guests_lock before reading the driver data, so any concurrent
read will block until after dev_set_drvdata() has been called
and the update locks are released.
As a bonus, the APQN no longer needs to be read from the queue
struct after allocation — it can be read directly from apdev
before allocation and stored in a local variable, which is then
assigned to q->apqn once the allocation succeeds.