CVE-2025-71299
Clock Disable Issue in Cadence QuadSPI Controller
Publication date: 2026-05-08
Last updated on: 2026-05-08
Assigner: kernel.org
Description
Description
CVSS Scores
EPSS Scores
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Meta Information
Affected Vendors & Products
| Vendor | Product | Version / Range |
|---|---|---|
| cadence | quadspi | * |
Helpful Resources
Exploitability
| CWE ID | Description |
|---|---|
| CWE-UNKNOWN |
Attack-Flow Graph
AI Powered Q&A
Can you explain this vulnerability to me?
This vulnerability exists in the Linux kernel's cadence-quadspi SPI driver. It arises from a recent refactoring related to runtime power management (PM). Specifically, when the driver encounters an error during the probe process, it disables runtime PM and manually disables clocks. However, if runtime PM is already active, both the runtime PM and the probe function attempt to disable the same clock resource, causing duplicate clock disable calls.
This results in warnings from the clock subsystem, indicating that a clock is being disabled more than once. The root cause is that the driver cannot reliably detect if runtime PM is active during error handling, leading to this double disable scenario. The fix involves moving the parsing of flash descriptions to an earlier stage, avoiding unnecessary setup and preventing the duplicate disable issue.
How can this vulnerability impact me? :
This vulnerability can cause warnings and errors in the kernel's clock management subsystem due to duplicate clock disable calls. While the description does not explicitly mention system crashes or data loss, such warnings can indicate instability or improper hardware management, potentially leading to unpredictable behavior or degraded system reliability.
In embedded systems or devices relying on the cadence-quadspi controller, this could result in issues during device initialization or power management, possibly affecting device performance or causing failures in flash memory access.
How can this vulnerability be detected on my network or system? Can you suggest some commands?
This vulnerability can be detected by monitoring the system logs for specific warning messages related to clock disables in the cadence-quadspi driver.
Look for kernel log entries similar to the following, which indicate duplicate clock disables triggered by the vulnerability:
- [ 8.693719] clk:75:7 already disabled
- [ 8.693791] WARNING: CPU: 1 PID: 185 at /usr/src/kernel/drivers/clk/clk.c:1188 clk_core_disable+0xa0/0xb
- [ 8.694283] cqspi_probe+0x7c8/0xc5c [spi_cadence_quadspi]
To detect these messages, you can use the following command to filter kernel logs:
- dmesg | grep -i 'clk.*already disabled'
- journalctl -k | grep -i 'clk.*already disabled'
What immediate steps should I take to mitigate this vulnerability?
Immediate mitigation involves ensuring that the device tree (DT) descriptions for the flashes attached to the cadence-quadspi controller are complete and correct.
This vulnerability arises due to missing or broken DT descriptions causing duplicate clock disables during error handling in the probe function.
If possible, update the Linux kernel to a version that includes the fix which refactors the parsing of flash descriptions to the controller property parsing stage, avoiding the problematic runtime PM disable sequence.
As a temporary workaround, monitor for the warning messages and avoid triggering error paths in the probe function that lead to pm_runtime_disable() calls.