CVE-2026-97996

NameCVE-2026-97996
DescriptionIn the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: virtio: fix use-after-free in unregister_virtio_device() device_unregister() is device_del() plus put_device(). When the caller holds no extra reference, that drops the last one and runs the release callback, which for several transports frees the memory the embedded struct virtio_device sits in. unregister_virtio_device() then calls virtio_debug_device_exit(), which reads dev->debugfs_dir out of the freed object. Affected transports are the ones whose release callback frees and whose remove path takes no reference: virtio_mmio, virtio_vdpa, virtio_uml, mlxbf-tmfifo and virtio_ccw. virtio_pci is unaffected because virtio_pci_remove() brackets the call with get_device() and put_device(). Remove the debugfs entries before the device can go away. They are only accessed through the protected debugfs interface, so debugfs_remove_recursive() waits for in-progress file operations before returning. Tearing them down while the device is still alive is therefore safe. Reproduced on User-Mode Linux with CONFIG_KASAN and CONFIG_VIRTIO_DEBUG by unbinding a virtio-uml device: BUG: KASAN: slab-use-after-free in virtio_debug_device_exit+0x36/0x4d Read of size 8 at addr 00000000616e0b10 by task init/1 __asan_report_load8_noabort virtio_debug_device_exit+0x36/0x4d unregister_virtio_device+0x48/0x75 virtio_uml_remove platform_remove device_release_driver_internal unbind_store Freed by task 1: kfree virtio_uml_release_dev device_release kobject_put put_device device_unregister With this applied, the report is gone and unbind is clean.
SourceCVE (at NVD; CERT, ENISA, LWN, oss-sec, fulldisc, Debian ELTS, Red Hat, Ubuntu, Gentoo, SUSE bugzilla/CVE, GitHub advisories/code/issues, web search, more)
ReferencesDLA-4817-1, DSA-6528-1

Vulnerable and fixed packages

The table below lists information on source packages.

Source PackageReleaseVersionStatus
linux (PTS)bookworm6.1.176-1fixed
bookworm (security)6.1.190-1fixed
trixie6.12.107-1vulnerable
trixie (security)6.12.113-1fixed
forky, sid7.2.11-1fixed
linux-6.12 (PTS)bookworm (security)6.12.111-1~deb12u1fixed

The information below is based on the following data on fixed versions.

PackageTypeReleaseFixed VersionUrgencyOriginDebian Bugs
linuxsourcebookworm(not affected)
linuxsourcetrixie6.12.111-1DSA-6528-1
linuxsource(unstable)7.2.7-1
linux-6.12sourcebookworm6.12.111-1~deb12u1DLA-4817-1

Notes

[bookworm] - linux <not-affected> (Vulnerable code not present)
https://git.kernel.org/linus/3f9a0fceb730f5107d52421ead5568eae25a0049 (7.3-rc3)

Search for package or bug name: Reporting problems