CVE-2025-38682CWE-415

CVE-2025-38682

High · published September 4, 2025

CVSS v3.1
7.8
EPSS
0%
Percentile
4.5
In the wild
Unconfirmed
What it is

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

i2c: core: Fix double-free of fwnode in i2c_unregister_device()

Before commit df6d7277e552 ("i2c: core: Do not dereference fwnode in struct

device"), i2c_unregister_device() only called fwnode_handle_put() on

of_node-s in the form of calling of_node_put(client->dev.of_node).

But after this commit the i2c_client's fwnode now unconditionally gets

fwnode_handle_put() on it.

When the i2c_client has no primary (ACPI / OF) fwnode but it does have

a software fwnode, the software-node will be the primary node and

fwnode_handle_put() will put() it.

But for the software fwnode device_remove_software_node() will also put()

it leading to a double free:

[ 82.665598] ------------[ cut here ]------------

[ 82.665609] refcount_t: underflow; use-after-free.

[ 82.665808] WARNING: CPU: 3 PID: 1502 at lib/refcount.c:28 refcount_warn_saturate+0xba/0x11

...

[ 82.666830] RIP: 0010:refcount_warn_saturate+0xba/0x110

...

[ 82.666962] <TASK>

[ 82.666971] i2c_unregister_device+0x60/0x90

Fix this by not calling fwnode_handle_put() when the primary fwnode is

a software-node.

The record
Technical detail
CVSS v3.1
7.8 · HIGH
Vector
CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
CVSS v4.0
Not supplied
EPSS
0.00157 · 4.5th percentile
Weakness
CWE-415 · Double Free
Published
2025-09-04T20:15Z
Affected products (1)
ProductVersionsFixed in
linux/linux_kernel≥ 6.16, < 6.16.26.16.2
References (2)
EPSS history
Timeline
  • 04 SEP 15:32Z
    i2c: core: Fix double-free of fwnode in i2c_unregister_device()
    cvelistv5