Incus has a Nil-Pointer Dereference via Custom Volume Import
Date: 2026-05
Affected: go/github.com/lxc/incus/v6/cmd/incusd
Attack vector: deserialization
Category: vulnerability-disclosure
Severity: High
CVE: CVE-2026-40197
CWE: CWE-476
CVSS: 6.5 (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H)

### Summary Missing validation logic in the storage volume import logic allows an authenticated user with access to Incus' storage volume feature to cause the Incus daemon to crash. Repeated use of this issue can be used to keep Incus offline causing a denial of service. ### Details The custom volume backup import subsystem contains a nil-pointer dereference vulnerability that allows an authenticated attacker to crash the daemon during import operations. In the snapshot import loop, the daemon iterates over entries from srcBackup.Config.VolumeSnapshots, which is a slice of pointers. The implementation assumes that each slice element is non-nil and immediately dereferences it through expressions such as snapshot.Name, snapshot.Config, snapshot.Description, snapshot.CreatedAt, and *snapshot.ExpiresAt without first validating that the element itself is initialized. 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 authenticated attacker can supply a backup archive containing a null entry in the volume_snapshots array. This causes the daemon to dereference a nil pointer during custom volume import and terminate, resulting in immediate denial of service on the node. Affected File: https://github.com/lxc/incus/blob/v6.22.0/internal/server/storage/backend.go Affected Code: ``` func (b *backend) CreateCustomVolumeFromBackup(srcBackup backup.Info, srcData io.ReadSeeker


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Architectural layers (MAESTRO):