CVE-2026-46004
HighCVSS 7.8Exploitation Probability (EPSS)
Low risk7th percentile - higher than 7% of all known CVEs
Summary
A vulnerability has been identified in the Linux kernel within the caiaq driver, concerning improper error handling during the probe procedure in the setup_card() function. Errors are not handled correctly, potentially leading to a use-after-free (UAF) situation in further calls.
Risk Assessment
Improper error management in the driver may lead to serious security issues, including potential exploitation of vulnerabilities by malicious software, threatening the integrity of the system.
Recommendation
It is recommended to update the Linux kernel to the latest version to eliminate this vulnerability and ensure proper error management in the caiaq driver.
Original NVD description (English source)
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ALSA: caiaq: Handle probe errors properly The probe procedure of setup_card() in caiaq driver doesn't treat the error cases gracefully, e.g. the error from snd_card_register() calls snd_card_free() but continues. This would lead to a UAF for the further calls like snd_usb_caiaq_control_init(), as Berk suggested in another patch in the link below. However, the problem is not only that; in general, this function drops the all error handlings (as it's a void function) although its caller can propagate an error to snd_probe(), which eventually calls snd_card_free() as a proper error path. That said, we should treat each error case in setup_card(), and just return the error code promptly, which is then handled later as a fatal error in snd_probe(). This patch achieves it by changing the setup_card() to return an error code. Also, the superfluous snd_card_free() call is removed, too. Note that card->private_free can be set still safely at returning an error. All called functions in card_free() have checks of the unassigned resources or NULL checks.