CVE-2026-90336 PUBLISHED

serial: core: clear freed pointers on uart_register_driver() failure

Assigner: Linux
Reserved: 11.09.2026 Published: 17.09.2026 Updated: 17.09.2026

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

serial: core: clear freed pointers on uart_register_driver() failure

uart_register_driver() leaves drv->state pointing to freed memory when tty_alloc_driver() fails. If tty_register_driver() fails, drv->tty_driver also retains a pointer after its reference is dropped.

Drivers that use drv->state as an "already registered" flag can then skip registration on the next probe and pass the freed state to uart_add_one_port().

This issue was found with failslab on QEMU's raspi1ap board by failing registration and binding the PL011 port again.

Clear both pointers on their failure paths, as uart_unregister_driver() already does.

Product Status

Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 to 06b376432974fe5f25f2843a8e8438c6a1cf3d50 (excl.)
  • affected from 1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 to 61a2fb25551be0375bc16ef2a70c987dfca26183 (excl.)
Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: affected
  • Version 2.6.12 is affected
  • unaffected from 0 to 2.6.12 (excl.)
  • unaffected from 7.2.6 to 7.2.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.3-rc1 to * (incl.)

References