Copyright © 2012 Red Hat, Inc. All rights reserved. Low 2026-07-25T00:00:00 kernel: firmware_loader: fix device reference leak in firmware_upload_register() 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H CWE-911

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: firmware_loader: fix device reference leak in firmware_upload_register() firmware_upload_register() -> fw_create_instance() -> device_initialize() After fw_create_instance() succeeds, the lifetime of the embedded struct device is expected to be managed through the device core reference counting, since fw_create_instance() has already called device_initialize(). In firmware_upload_register(), if alloc_lookup_fw_priv() fails after fw_create_instance() succeeds, the code reaches free_fw_sysfs and frees fw_sysfs directly instead of releasing the device reference with put_device(). This may leave the reference count of the embedded struct device unbalanced, resulting in a refcount leak. The issue was identified by a static analysis tool I developed and confirmed by manual review. Fix this by using put_device(fw_dev) in the failure path and letting fw_dev_release() handle the final cleanup, instead of freeing the instance directly from the error path.

A flaw was found in the Linux kernel's firmware loader component. This vulnerability occurs in the `firmware_upload_register()` function when an allocation failure happens after a device instance is created. The system fails to properly release a device reference, leading to an unbalanced reference count. This can result in a resource leak within the kernel.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 Fix deferred kernel Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Not affected kernel Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Not affected kernel Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Not affected kernel-rt Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Not affected kernel Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 Not affected kernel-rt Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 Fix deferred kernel Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 Fix deferred kernel-rt https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-64376 https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-64376 https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/2026072524-CVE-2026-64376-efcf@gregkh/T