CVE-2026-74438
HIGHCVE-2026-74438 is a high-severity (CVSS 7.8) remote code execution vulnerability in Kernel. O3 Security confirms whether CVE-2026-74438 is actually reachable in your code before you act, and blocks exploitation at runtime until you patch.
crypto: sun4i-ss - Remove insecure and unused rng_alg
Real-World Exposure
KernelReal-time download stats are indexed for npm and PyPI packages. This vulnerability affects Linux packages — download data is not available via public APIs for these ecosystems.
Description
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
crypto: sun4i-ss - Remove insecure and unused rng_alg
Remove sun4i_ss_rng, as it is insecure and unused:
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It has multiple vulnerabilities. sun4i_ss_prng_seed() is missing locking and has a buffer overflow. sun4i_ss_prng_generate() fails to fill the entire buffer with cryptographic random bytes, because it rounds the destination length down and also doesn't actually wait for the hardware to be ready before pulling bytes from it.
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No user of this code is known. It's usable only theoretically via the "rng" algorithm type of AF_ALG. But userspace actually just uses the actual Linux RNG (/dev/random etc) instead. And rng_algs don't contribute entropy to the actual Linux RNG either. (This may have been confused with hwrng, which does contribute entropy.)
The sun4i_ss_prng_seed() buffer overflow was reported by Tianchu Chen and discovered by Atuin - Automated Vulnerability Discovery Engine
There's no point in fixing all these vulnerabilities individually when this is unused code, so let's just remove it.
Affected Packages
| Ecosystem | Package | Vulnerable range | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🐧Linux | Kernel | ≥ 4.14.0&&< 5.15.212 | 5.15.212 |
Detection & mitigation playbook
Open-source dependencyDetect
Scan your dependency tree (package-lock.json, pnpm-lock.yaml, requirements.txt, go.sum, etc.) for Kernel. O3's reachability analysis confirms whether the vulnerable code path is actually invoked in your application, so you act on real exposure instead of every transitive match.
Fix
Update Kernel to 5.15.212 or later, then make sure no transitive (indirect) dependency still pins the vulnerable range — O3 confirms CVE-2026-74438 is resolved across your whole dependency graph.
Workarounds
If you can't upgrade right away: gate or disable the affected feature, validate untrusted input at the boundary, and avoid passing attacker-controlled data into the vulnerable path. O3's runtime protection blocks exploitation in production as an interim safeguard until the upgrade lands.
How O3 protects you
O3 pinpoints whether CVE-2026-74438 is reachable in your code and exactly where to fix it, then blocks exploitation in production at runtime until the patched version is deployed.
Tailored to CVE-2026-74438. Runtime protection reduces exposure until a permanent patch is applied and verified — it complements patching, it doesn't replace it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CVE-2026-74438 in your dependencies?
O3 detects CVE-2026-74438 across Linux dependencies and uses function-level reachability to confirm whether the vulnerable code path is actually reachable — not just present. No false positives.