Linux KernelOperating system · Linux

CVE-2026-43197

CRITICAL · 9.1 CVSS v3.1 Published 2026-05-06
Fix available
A fix is available. Upgrade to 6.18.16 / 6.19.6 or later.
See remediation →
100/100
Remediation priority · Urgent
Remotely reachable No privileges Zero-click Patch available

Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.

NVD · unedited
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: netconsole: avoid OOB reads, msg is not nul-terminated msg passed to netconsole from the console subsystem is not guaranteed to be nul-terminated. Before recent commit 7eab73b18630 ("netconsole: convert to NBCON console infrastructure") the message would be placed in printk_shared_pbufs, a static global buffer, so KASAN had harder time catching OOB accesses. Now we see: printk: console [netcon_ext0] enabled BUG: KASAN: slab-out-of-bounds in string+0x1f7/0x240 Read of size 1 at addr ffff88813b6d4c00 by task pr/netcon_ext0/594 CPU: 65 UID: 0 PID: 594 Comm: pr/netcon_ext0 Not tainted 6.19.0-11754-g4246fd6547c9 Call Trace: kasan_report+0xe4/0x120 string+0x1f7/0x240 vsnprintf+0x655/0xba0 scnprintf+0xba/0x120 netconsole_write+0x3fe/0xa10 nbcon_emit_next_record+0x46e/0x860 nbcon_kthread_func+0x623/0x750 Allocated by task 1: nbcon_alloc+0x1ea/0x450 register_console+0x26b/0xe10 init_netconsole+0xbb0/0xda0 The buggy address belongs to the object at ffff88813b6d4000 which belongs to the cache kmalloc-4k of size 4096 The buggy address is located 0 bytes to the right of allocated 3072-byte region [ffff88813b6d4000, ffff88813b6d4c00)

Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.

dbcve analysis
How this class of weakness works · CWE-125

The code reads past the end (or before the start) of a buffer, returning memory that was never meant to be exposed. Attackers use it to leak secrets like keys or to defeat memory-protection defences. Remediation is validating indices and lengths before every read.

General guidance for the out-of-bounds read class — the official description and references above are authoritative for this specific CVE. Want a bespoke review and a reviewed fix? Ask our team →

Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.

NVD · CPE data
Linux KernelOperating system
Affected:>= 6.6, < 6.18.16>= 6.19, < 6.19.6= 7.0

CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.

From the vector
Attack vector
Network
Complexity
Low
Privileges
None
User interaction
None
Scope
Unchanged
Confidentiality
High
Integrity
None
Availability
High

CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:H

Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.

dbcve · scoped
Upgrade available Upgrade to 6.18.16 / 6.19.6 or later
Fixed in 6.18.166.19.6
Vendor patch git.kernel.org →
Recommended fix High confidence

6.18.16 or 6.19.6 (depending on which branch you are on); for 7.0 branch use latest stable 7.x

  1. Identify the current running kernel version using 'uname -r'
  2. Determine which version branch you are on (6.6.x - 6.18.x, 6.19.x, or 7.0.x)
  3. For kernels >= 6.6 and < 6.18.16: Plan upgrade to kernel 6.18.16 or later
  4. For kernels >= 6.19 and < 6.19.6: Plan upgrade to kernel 6.19.6 or later
  5. For kernel 7.0: Plan upgrade to the latest stable 7.x release
  6. Apply the upgrade through your distribution's package manager or kernel build process
  7. Reboot into the new kernel and verify the fix is present by checking the kernel version
Caveat Kernel upgrades may require rebuilding out-of-tree modules; verify driver compatibility before upgrading

Generated from the published advisory — verify against the referenced sources before acting.

We can perform the upgrade in your staging environment and verify nothing breaks — typical engagement from $3,550. Get the upgrade done

Scan for this in your stack

Free · runs locally
dbcve dependency scanner

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References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.

Primary sources

Practitioner notes

Contributed

Peer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2026-43197 in production — separate from our analysis above.

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What this is

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  • Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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