CVE Catalog

CVE-2026-64376

Low risk· EPSS 7%
Published: Updated: Translated: NVD NIST

Exploitation Probability (EPSS)

Low risk
0.17%

7th percentile - higher than 7% of all known CVEs

Summary

In the firmware_loader subsystem, a device reference leak was found. The firmware_upload_register() function fails to release the device reference on error after initialization, causing a reference count imbalance.

Risk Assessment

The reference leak may prevent proper device cleanup, leading to kernel resource exhaustion and potential denial of service.

Recommendation

Apply the patch that uses put_device() in the error path instead of directly freeing the structure.

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

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Original NVD description (English source)

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: firmware_loader: fix device reference leak in firmware_upload_register() firmware_upload_register() -> fw_create_instance() -> device_initialize() After fw_create_instance() succeeds, the lifetime of the embedded struct device is expected to be managed through the device core reference counting, since fw_create_instance() has already called device_initialize(). In firmware_upload_register(), if alloc_lookup_fw_priv() fails after fw_create_instance() succeeds, the code reaches free_fw_sysfs and frees fw_sysfs directly instead of releasing the device reference with put_device(). This may leave the reference count of the embedded struct device unbalanced, resulting in a refcount leak. The issue was identified by a static analysis tool I developed and confirmed by manual review. Fix this by using put_device(fw_dev) in the failure path and letting fw_dev_release() handle the final cleanup, instead of freeing the instance directly from the error path.

Vulnerability data from NVD (NIST) · CISA KEV · EPSS