CVE-2026-98837 PUBLISHED

ALSA: caiaq: unregister the input device when probe fails

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

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

ALSA: caiaq: unregister the input device when probe fails

setup_card() registers the input device, whose name and phys point into struct snd_usb_caiaqdev, and then goes on to snd_card_register() and snd_usb_caiaq_control_init(). If either fails, snd_probe() calls snd_card_free(), which frees the device state but leaves the input device registered: card_free() only clears the pointer, and the input device is unregistered from snd_disconnect() alone. Reading its "uevent" attribute afterwards dereferences freed memory:

BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in string+0x4a9/0x4f0 Read of size 1 at addr ffff8880208f5043 by task caiaq/4967 add_uevent_var+0x183/0x3a0 input_dev_uevent+0x162/0x900 dev_uevent+0x2f1/0x870 uevent_show+0x1ca/0x3a0 ...

Unregister the input device on the probe error path, as snd_disconnect() does. snd_usb_caiaq_input_disconnect() is a no-op when no input device was registered.

Reproduced with a raw-gadget Audio Kontrol 1 and a temporary hack that makes snd_usb_caiaq_control_init() fail.

Product Status

Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: unaffected
  • affected from 6251e3e256337a30160ef59ab1580dde4d1acd28 to 850810c12686f80cdf7530f4f21e0157d904f739 (excl.)
  • affected from e59ecd4ee3a450db6cb4e4ecaa3efdd593f80056 to 84727facd8506140cd04f2b0a8b1c4ddeac41cea (excl.)
  • affected from 28abd224db4a49560b452115bca3672a20e45b2f to 2e5a413cc2a489c9427ecd3d73ad764bfb0c7103 (excl.)
  • affected from 28abd224db4a49560b452115bca3672a20e45b2f to 0b7bd20f6379bc5e431fd74d866390f5b5b63f3c (excl.)
  • Version da938aa9fc7826901921dcea225948ab21a97e45 is affected
  • Version 09616e25f502080ba684fc7fcf959d1376ab756d is affected
  • Version b956e48371f2ff72b76be9a829800ecec963bd45 is affected
  • Version f537e3ad69609f6924a4db6b4a7f6561f5288bdd is affected
  • Version 096dd8519cf2f768e9e14f224b627f7aaee1a9c5 is affected
  • affected from 6.12.86 to 6.12.113 (excl.)
  • affected from 6.18.27 to 6.18.56 (excl.)
  • affected from 5.10.258 to 5.11 (excl.)
  • affected from 5.15.209 to 5.16 (excl.)
  • affected from 6.1.175 to 6.2 (excl.)
  • affected from 6.6.140 to 6.7 (excl.)
  • affected from 7.0.4 to 7.1 (excl.)
Vendor Linux
Product Linux
Versions Default: affected
  • Version 7.1 is affected
  • unaffected from 0 to 7.1 (excl.)
  • unaffected from 6.12.113 to 6.12.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 6.18.56 to 6.18.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.2.10 to 7.2.* (incl.)
  • unaffected from 7.3-rc6 to * (incl.)

References