CVE-2026-31578

About vulnerability

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

media: as102: fix to not free memory after the device is registered in as102_usb_probe()

In as102_usb driver, the following race condition occurs:

CPU0						CPU1
as102_usb_probe()
kzalloc(); // alloc as102_dev_t
....
usb_register_dev();
fd = sys_open("/path/to/dev"); // open as102 fd
....
usb_deregister_dev();
....
kfree(); // free as102_dev_t
....
sys_close(fd);
as102_release() // UAF!!
as102_usb_release()
kfree(); // DFB!!

When a USB character device registered with usb_register_dev() is later unregistered (via usb_deregister_dev() or disconnect), the device node is removed so new open() calls fail. However, file descriptors that are already open do not go away immediately: they remain valid until the last reference is dropped and the driver’s .release() is invoked.

In as102, as102_usb_probe() calls usb_register_dev() and then, on an error path, does usb_deregister_dev() and frees as102_dev_t right away. If userspace raced a successful open() before the deregistration, that open FD will later hit as102_release() –> as102_usb_release() and access or free as102_dev_t again, occur a race to use-after-free and double-free vuln.

The fix is to never kfree(as102_dev_t) directly once usb_register_dev() has succeeded. After deregistration, defer freeing memory to .release().

In other words, let release() perform the last kfree when the final open FD is closed.

Affected product:

AlmaLinux 9.2 ESU , Amazon Linux 2 ELS , CentOS 6 ELS , CentOS 7 ELS , CentOS 8.4 ELS , CentOS 8.5 ELS , CentOS Stream 8 ELS , CloudLinux 7 ELS , Debian 10 ELS , Oracle Linux 6 ELS , Oracle Linux 7 ELS , RHEL 7 ELS , TuxCare 9.6 ESU , Ubuntu 16.04 ELS , Ubuntu 18.04 ELS , Ubuntu 20.04 ELS

Affected packages:

kernel @ 2.6.32 (+18 more)

Live-patch status from KernelCare for each operating system.