CVE-2026-21525
NULL Pointer Dereference: Is CVE-2026-21525 real, exploitable, or a false positive? Here's the community verdict.
signals
public sources
Confirmed exploited in the wild. Patch this first, regardless of the base score.
baseline read
auto · not a community verdict
Real — exploited in the wild
CISA confirms active exploitation. Treat scanner hits as true positives unless your specific version or config is unaffected.
Based on CISA KEV
Confirm or dispute →CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Null pointer dereference in Windows Remote Access Connection Manager allows an unauthorized attacker to deny service locally.
NVD only has a brief summary for this one. The community fills in the real-world detail below.
References
Published
Embed this verdict
[](https://www.truepositive.app/cve/CVE-2026-21525)<a href="https://www.truepositive.app/cve/CVE-2026-21525"><img src="https://www.truepositive.app/cve/CVE-2026-21525/badge.svg" alt="TruePositive verdict for CVE-2026-21525"></a>Live badge that updates automatically as the community verdict changes.
Community ground truth
Be the first practitioner to weigh in
So far this is only TruePositive's editorial baseline from public sources. Add your real-world verdict below — it becomes the signal the next person triaging this relies on.
🥇 The first 50 practitioners to contribute earn a Founding Contributor badge.
In your experience, is this finding real and exploitable?
awaiting field verdictsCurated baseline: TruePositive's read from public sources is Real & exploitable — a starting point, not a community verdict.
No account needed. Anonymous verdicts post as an unverified signal. Log in to make yours verified and earn reputation.
Field notes & remediation
Verdicts are the quick signal. Notes are the evidence and fixes behind them.
- 0
Microsoft Windows NULL Pointer Dereference Vulnerability — Microsoft Windows Remote Access Connection Manager contains a NULL pointer dereference that could allow an unauthorized attacker to deny service locally. Listed in the CISA KEV catalog (added 2026-02-10) — confirmed exploited in the wild, not theoretical. FIRST EPSS puts the chance of exploitation in the next 30 days at ~5%. Treat it as real and prioritize remediation over triage.
- 0
Required action for Microsoft Windows: Apply mitigations per vendor instructions, follow applicable BOD 22-01 guidance for cloud services, or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable. CISA set a federal remediation due date of 2026-03-03. After patching, verify the vulnerable path is no longer reachable before closing the finding.
Add a field note or remediationoptional
Related CVEs
Same weakness: CWE-476 · NULL Pointer Dereference.
- CVE-2026-45729MED 4.3
Thor Vector Graphics (ThorVG) is a production-ready vector graphics engine. Prior to version 1.0.5, a null pointer dereference in SvgLoader::run() allows any caller that passes untrusted SVG data to Picture::load() to crash the process with a 6-byte payload. This issue has been patched in version 1.0.5.
- CVE-2025-22037HIGH 7.5Likely realEPSS 66%
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ksmbd: fix null pointer dereference in alloc_preauth_hash() The Client send malformed smb2 negotiate request. ksmbd return error response. Subsequently, the client can send smb2 session setup even thought conn->preauth_info is not allocated. This patch add KSMBD_SESS_NEED_SETUP status of connection to ignore session setup request if smb2 negotiate phase is not complete.
- CVE-2023-3866HIGH 7.5EPSS 10%
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ksmbd: validate session id and tree id in the compound request This patch validate session id and tree id in compound request. If first operation in the compound is SMB2 ECHO request, ksmbd bypass session and tree validation. So work->sess and work->tcon could be NULL. If secound request in the compound access work->sess or tcon, It cause NULL pointer dereferecing error.
- CVE-2018-6951HIGH 7.5EPSS 8%
An issue was discovered in GNU patch through 2.7.6. There is a segmentation fault, associated with a NULL pointer dereference, leading to a denial of service in the intuit_diff_type function in pch.c, aka a "mangled rename" issue.
- CVE-2023-2953HIGH 7.5Real · low riskEPSS 2%
A vulnerability was found in openldap. This security flaw causes a null pointer dereference in ber_memalloc_x() function.
- CVE-2026-28388HIGH 7.5Real · low riskEPSS 1%
Issue summary: When a delta CRL that contains a Delta CRL Indicator extension is processed a NULL pointer dereference might happen if the required CRL Number extension is missing. Impact summary: A NULL pointer dereference can trigger a crash which leads to a Denial of Service for an application. When CRL processing and delta CRL processing is enabled during X.509 certificate verification, the delta CRL processing does not check whether the CRL Number extension is NULL before dereferencing it. When a malformed delta CRL file is being processed, this parameter can be NULL, causing a NULL pointer dereference. Exploiting this issue requires the X509_V_FLAG_USE_DELTAS flag to be enabled in the verification context, the certificate being verified to contain a freshestCRL extension or the base CRL to have the EXFLAG_FRESHEST flag set, and an attacker to provide a malformed CRL to an application that processes it. The vulnerability is limited to Denial of Service and cannot be escalated to achieve code execution or memory disclosure. For that reason the issue was assessed as Low severity according to our Security Policy. The FIPS modules in 3.6, 3.5, 3.4, 3.3 and 3.0 are not affected by this issue, as the affected code is outside the OpenSSL FIPS module boundary.