CVE-2026-98747 PUBLISHED

serial: core: fix NULL pointer dereference in serial_core_unregister_port()

Assigner: Linux
Reserved: 25.09.2026 Published: 18.10.2026 Updated: 18.10.2026

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

serial: core: fix NULL pointer dereference in serial_core_unregister_port()

port->port_dev is NULL when no port device is installed: it is cleared on teardown, and never set if registration failed before serial_core_port_device_add(). serial_core_unregister_port() passes it straight to serial_core_get_ctrl_dev(), which dereferences it:

KASAN: null-ptr-deref in range [0x0000000000000040-0x0000000000000047] RIP: serial_core_unregister_port Call Trace: serial8250_unregister_port serial8250_remove unbind_store

Return early when there is no port device, and read port->port_dev under port_mutex.

Also clear port->port_dev on the serial_core_register_port() error path, where the port device has already been removed.

Product Status

Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 84a9582fd203063cd4d301204971ff2cd8327f1a to 54abbb862366dcaf1f22f1e968358147b7d0547d (excl.)
  • affected from 84a9582fd203063cd4d301204971ff2cd8327f1a to 499485a67fbacf4d9afbdb43522388c64f853428 (excl.)
Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: affected
  • Version 6.5 is affected
  • unaffected from 0 to 6.5 (excl.)
  • unaffected from 7.2.10 to 7.2.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.3-rc6 to * (incl.)

References