CVE-2026-98837
Received
Received - Intake
Use-After-Free in Linux Kernel ALSA caiaq Driver
Vulnerability report for CVE-2026-98837, including description, CVSS score, EPSS score, affected products, exploitability, helpful resources, and attack-flow context.
Publication date: 2026-10-18
Last updated on: 2026-10-18
Assigner: kernel.org
Description
Description
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.
CVSS Scores
EPSS Scores
| Probability: | |
| Percentile: |
Meta Information
Affected Vendors & Products
| Vendor | Product | Version / Range |
|---|---|---|
| Linux | Linux | 6251e3e256337a30160ef59ab1580dde4d1acd28 |
| Linux | Linux | e59ecd4ee3a450db6cb4e4ecaa3efdd593f80056 |
| Linux | Linux | 28abd224db4a49560b452115bca3672a20e45b2f |
| Linux | Linux | 28abd224db4a49560b452115bca3672a20e45b2f |
| Linux | Linux | da938aa9fc7826901921dcea225948ab21a97e45 |
| Linux | Linux | 09616e25f502080ba684fc7fcf959d1376ab756d |
| Linux | Linux | b956e48371f2ff72b76be9a829800ecec963bd45 |
| Linux | Linux | f537e3ad69609f6924a4db6b4a7f6561f5288bdd |
| Linux | Linux | 096dd8519cf2f768e9e14f224b627f7aaee1a9c5 |
| Linux | Linux | 6.12.86 |
| Linux | Linux | 6.18.27 |
| Linux | Linux | 5.10.258 |
| Linux | Linux | 5.15.209 |
| Linux | Linux | 6.1.175 |
| Linux | Linux | 6.6.140 |
| Linux | Linux | 7.0.4 |
| Linux | Linux | 7.1 |
Helpful Resources
Exploitability
CWE
KEV
| CWE ID | Description |
|---|---|
| CWE-UNKNOWN |
