Overview
About vulnerability
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: wifi: rtw88: fix device leak on probe failure Driver core holds a reference to the USB interface and its parent USB device while the interface is bound to a driver and there is no need to take additional references unless the structures are needed after disconnect. This driver takes a reference to the USB device during probe but does not to release it on all probe errors (e.g. when descriptor parsing fails). Drop the redundant device reference to fix the leak, reduce cargo culting, make it easier to spot drivers where an extra reference is needed, and reduce the risk of further memory leaks. A flaw was found in the Linux kernel’s rtw88 Wi-Fi driver. This vulnerability occurs when the driver fails to release a reference to a Universal Serial Bus (USB) device during certain probe errors, such as when descriptor parsing fails. A local attacker could potentially trigger this condition by plugging in a malformed USB device, leading to memory leaks. Over time, these unreleased resources could accumulate, potentially causing system instability or a denial of service.Details
KernelCare state
Live-patch status from KernelCare for each operating system.
| Operating system | Status | Covered kernels |
|---|---|---|
| Debian 13 | Planned | — |
| Ubuntu 24.04 | Planned | — |