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Fencer Intel
medium 6.5

CVE-2026-40197 json

Incus nil-pointer dereference in custom volume import allows denial of service

published 6mo ago modified 14d ago also GHSA-r7w7-mmxr-47r9 , GO-2026-5612 , EUVD-2026-28209

cvss
6.5
version 3.1, NVD
cisa kev
Not listed
not in CISA's catalog
epss
0.4%
EPSS 0.4% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 32%
public exploits
0
none known

Summary

Incus is a system container and virtual machine manager. In versions before 7.0.0, missing validation logic in the storage volume import logic allows an authenticated user with access to the storage volume feature to cause the Incus daemon to crash. The custom volume backup import subsystem contains a nil-pointer dereference vulnerability during import operations. In the snapshot import loop, the daemon iterates over entries from `srcBackup.Config.VolumeSnapshots` and assumes that each slice element is initialized, then dereferences fields such as `Name`, `Config`, `Description`, `CreatedAt`, and `ExpiresAt` without first validating the element itself. Because the yaml unmarshaler accepts explicit null array elements from an attacker-controlled index.yaml and converts them into nil pointers inside the slice, an attacker can supply a backup archive containing a null entry in the volume_snapshots array. This causes a nil-pointer dereference during custom volume import and terminates the daemon, resulting in denial of service on the affected node. Repeated use of this issue can be used to keep Incus offline, causing a denial of service. This issue is fixed in version 7.0.0.

Patch / fix

  • go github.com/lxc/incus/v6/cmd/incusd 7.0.0
  • go github.com/lxc/incus/v7 7.0.0
  • linuxcontainers incus 7.0.0
  • lxd Debian 13 5.0.2+git20231211.1364ae4-9+deb13u6
  • incus Debian 13 6.0.4-2+deb13u7
  • incus Debian 14 7.0.0-1

debian advisories DEBIAN-CVE-2026-40197

  • govulncheck-vulndb openSUSE Leap 16.0 0.0.20260723T184607-160000.1.1

opensuse advisories openSUSE-SU-2026:21483-1

  • incus Alpine 3.24 7.0.0-r0

alpine advisories ALPINE-CVE-2026-40197

Alpine secdb © Alpine Linux, from https://secdb.alpinelinux.org via OSV; changed: normalised to fixed package versions per release. CC BY-SA 4.0

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Vendor advisories

What the vendors themselves say about their products: affected, fixed or not affected, and what to do.

red hat product security vex CVE-2026-40197 updated cvss 6.5

github.com/lxc/incus: Incus: Denial of Service via nil-pointer dereference in custom volume import

  • Red Hat All currently supported Red Hat products
    not affected: vulnerable code not present

Red Hat CSAF VEX © Red Hat, Inc., from https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/vex/; changed: reduced to product statuses and remediations. CC BY 4.0 · csaf

CISA SSVC

Exploitation
none
Automatable
no
Technical impact
partial
Assessed
6mo ago

Exploit prediction

0.39% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 32% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-09).

Exploits and checks

  • github.com https://github.com/lxc/incus/security/advisories/GHSA-r7w7-mmxr-47r9 referenced PoC, tagged "exploit" by a source, unverified

CVSS scores

assigned by version score vector
CNA 4.0 7.1 CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N
CNA 4.0 7.1 CVSS:4.0/AV:N/AC:L/AT:N/PR:L/UI:N/VC:N/VI:N/VA:H/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N/E:X/CR:X/IR:X/AR:X/MAV:X/MAC:X/MAT:X/MPR:X/MUI:X/MVC:X/MVI:X/MVA:X/MSC:X/MSI:X/MSA:X/S:X/AU:X/R:X/V:X/RE:X/U:X
NVD 3.1 6.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
GitHub 3.1 6.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H

Affected packages

ecosystem package affected fixed in
go github.com/lxc/incus/v6/cmd/incusd
<7.0.0
7.0.0
go github.com/lxc/incus
all versions
 no fix listed
go github.com/lxc/incus/v6
all versions
 no fix listed
go github.com/lxc/incus/v7
<7.0.0
7.0.0

Affected products

  • lxc incus

Classification

Weakness

References

Sources

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