Description

Null pointer dereference in Windows iSCSI Target Service allows an unauthorized attacker to deny service over a network.

Executive Summary

Technical Details

Mitigations

References

Additional Metadata

{
  "score": "7.5",
  "pubDate": "2026-08-11T17:18:55.857Z",
  "pubdate": "2026-08-11T17:18:55.857Z",
  "executiveSummary": "A null pointer dereference vulnerability exists within the Windows iSCSI Target Service, posing a significant risk to system availability. The flaw allows an unauthorized, remote attacker over a network to induce a denial of service condition against the targeted infrastructure.\nWhen successfully exploited, the vulnerability triggers an unhandled exception within the affected service, resulting in a crash of the Windows iSCSI Target Service. This disruption impacts the availability of shared storage resources relying on the iSCSI protocol, potentially causing operational downtime for dependent applications and virtual machines.\nThe affected product is the Windows iSCSI Target Service. Exploitation requires network connectivity to the vulnerable service, but does not necessitate authentication or elevated privileges, lowering the barrier for potential threat actors.\nThe risk implication is primarily targeted availability degradation, allowing unauthenticated remote adversaries to disrupt storage services without requiring prior access to the host environment.",
  "technicalDetails": "The vulnerability stems from a null pointer dereference flaw residing within the Windows iSCSI Target Service component. A root cause analysis of typical null pointer issues in this context indicates that the application fails to adequately validate input parameters or internal pointer states before attempting to access memory addresses.\nDuring normal execution, the iSCSI Target Service parses incoming network traffic and control packets over the iSCSI protocol. When a maliciously crafted request or an unexpected sequence of packets is processed, the service attempts to reference a memory pointer that has been initialized to a null value.\nThe attack flow proceeds as follows: First, the unauthorized attacker establishes network connectivity to the listening port associated with the Windows iSCSI Target Service. Second, the attacker transmits a specially constructed network payload designed to trigger the vulnerable code path within the service parsing logic.\nThird, upon receiving and processing the payload, the application logic evaluates the manipulated input and attempts to dereference the uninitialized or null pointer. Because the operating system detects an invalid memory access violation, an unhandled exception is raised.\nFinally, the failure to catch or gracefully handle this exception forces the Windows iSCSI Target Service to terminate abruptly, resulting in a denial of service state. Network exposure is present wherever the iSCSI service is reachable across the network interface. Authentication requirements are non-existent, and privilege requirements are absent, enabling any network-adjacent attacker capable of reaching the service to execute the disruption."
}