Attack ChainAIDerived
Hypothetical attack flow derived from CVE metadata – not a confirmed exploit chain
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AccessGain local access to MSC313e device
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ExploitTrigger system suspend/resume cycle
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ExecutionPM callback dereferences NULL drvdata
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ImpactKernel crash / denial of service
Vulnerability Assessment
| Weakness |
CWE
OWASP Top 10:2025
A10:2025 - Mishandling of Exceptional Conditions
ASVS 5.0
V16 - Security Logging and Error Handling Null pointer safety, defensive checks
MITRE ATT&CK
1 technique across 1 tactic: Impact The technique list with ATT&CK links and the kill-chain view is part of the Basic plan and up. |
| Exploitation Conditions | Exploitation is confined to systems whose kernel loads the msc313e watchdog driver - i.e. MStar/SigmaStar MSC313e-series ARM SoCs with CONFIG_MSC313E_WATCHDOG enabled; general-purpose Linux installs without this hardware/driver are unaffected. The specific trigger is a power-management suspend or resume event: msc313e_wdt_suspend()/msc313e_wdt_resume() call dev_get_drvdata(), which returns NULL because msc313e_wdt_probe() failed to set the platform device driver data. Limiting factors: attack vector is LOCAL (AV:L, no remote reach), it requires privileges (PR:L) sufficient to be on the device and to initiate or await a suspend/resume cycle, and impact is availability-only (a crash) - there is no information disclosure or code-execution path described. |
| Impact | This is a genuinely low-priority issue despite the 'MEDIUM' CVSS 5.5 label. The CVSS vector (AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H) describes a local, authenticated, availability-only defect - no confidentiality or integrity impact. EPSS agrees: 0.17% probability (5th percentile), indicating essentially no observed exploitation interest. It is NOT in CISA KEV, and no exploit or PoC is present in the input - the only references are the upstream fix commits on git.kernel.org. The vuln.today decision label is 'this_month' (routine patching), not act_now or emergency, which is consistent with the low-severity, low-EPSS, no-KEV signal set. Importantly, the impact is further constrained: the NULL dereference occurs inside the msc313e watchdog driver's suspend/resume PM callbacks, so it only matters on hardware that uses this specific driver and only during a power-management transition. The 'Denial Of Service' tag is accurate but the realistic blast radius is a local crash on a narrow class of embedded devices. No conflicting signals of note; all sources point the same direction (low real-world risk). |
| Exploit ScenarioDerived | On a system running the MStar/SigmaStar MSC313e SoC watchdog driver, a local user or automated power-management event triggers a system suspend/resume cycle. Because the driver never set its platform driver data, the suspend/resume PM callbacks retrieve a NULL pointer via dev_get_drvdata() and dereference it, crashing the kernel (availability loss). No public exploit code is present in the input - only the upstream fix commits. |
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Alert meAnalysisAIv1 – Oct 22, 2026
Linux kernel systems running the msc313e watchdog driver on MStar/SigmaStar MSC313e-series ARM SoCs can crash during a power-management suspend or resume cycle because msc313e_wdt_probe() never sets the platform device driver data, so dev_get_drvdata() in the suspend/resume callbacks returns NULL and is dereferenced. The flaw is local and requires low privileges (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H, CWE-476) and affects availability only; installations without this hardware or CONFIG_MSC313E_WATCHDOG are not exposed. It is not in CISA KEV, no public exploit has been identified at time of analysis, and EPSS is 0.17% (5th percentile), consistent with a low-priority, hardware-specific denial-of-service issue.
RemediationAI
Vendor-released patch: update the Linux kernel to a fixed stable release - EUVD identifies 6.12.111, 6.18.53, 7.2.7, and 7.3-rc3 - or apply the referenced upstream stable commits (b02f902fe4b59d65f74a25c4523a75453bd3f808, 744b25040d8206f7925b8ba0be5edf93fa4bf81e, 6495dc16e635356fd2b7535dcbf9b6779de4e753, e3eceb76515910746e6268c4e4ac1c07516ebd7b, 960251cc4a413d8f1eef2a2c6aca41073b57ce16, a135415be56839e555e0bcdd5ffb8d2f5f947bd7, afc3ea51e479289a23c642cc8bade67b94225ed9). If an immediate kernel update is not possible on affected MSC313e hardware, avoid entering system suspend/resume cycles or do not load the msc313e_wdt driver (for example, blacklist the module), noting that not loading the driver disables the hardware watchdog and avoiding suspend affects power management; because exploitation requires local low-privileged access, restrict interactive access to trusted users. Advisory references include https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b02f902fe4b59d65f74a25c4523a75453bd3f808 and the NVD entry https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-98121.
Affected VersionsENISA
Affected Packages
Source: OSV (Open Source Vulnerabilities)
Affects your stack
Affects 1 package in euvd
Checking this CVE against your own stacks and servers is part of the Basic plan and up.
Technical ContextAI · show details
The msc313e watchdog is a Linux kernel driver for the watchdog timer integrated in MStar/SigmaStar MSC313e-series ARM SoCs. Its probe function registers the watchdog but fails to call platform_set_drvdata(), leaving the platform device's driver data unset. When the system suspends or resumes, the PM callbacks msc313e_wdt_suspend() and msc313e_wdt_resume() call dev_get_drvdata() and then dereference the returned pointer; because it is NULL, a NULL pointer dereference (CWE-476) occurs. The affected CPE is linux:linux; the driver is built only when CONFIG_MSC313E_WATCHDOG is enabled and the kernel runs on the matching SoC, so generic x86 or other ARM systems are unaffected. The trigger is specifically a suspend/resume event, not a remote network condition.
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Severity by source
AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Local-only driver bug (AV:L) triggered via a suspend/resume cycle needing local privilege (PR:L); availability-only kernel crash (A:H) with no C/I impact.
Primary rating from NVD.
CVSS VectorNVD
Lifecycle Timeline
4DescriptionNVD
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
watchdog: msc313e: Fix NULL pointer dereference in PM callbacks
msc313e_wdt_probe() doesn't set the driver data for the platform device. As a result, dev_get_drvdata() in msc313e_wdt_suspend() and msc313e_wdt_resume() will return NULL, leading to a NULL pointer dereference afterward.
Set the platform device driver data in msc313e_wdt_probe().
Threat Intelligence Overview
How this decision was reached
The engine reads each signal below and applies a fixed list of rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches sets the recommended action – like a statement, every line is shown.
What every action level means
SSVC AssessmentENISA
Priority Score
Attack Technique
A null pointer dereference occurs when a program attempts to access memory through a pointer that has been set to NULL (address 0x0).
Denial of Service attacks render applications or systems unavailable by overwhelming resources or triggering failure conditions.
EUVD-2026-86952
GHSA-mh89-4wj5-pm5q
NVD
CVE.org
EPSS
Exploit-DB