Copyright © 2012 Red Hat, Inc. All rights reserved. Moderate 2026-08-28T00:00:00 kernel: driver core: use READ_ONCE() for dev->driver in dev_has_sync_state() 5.5 CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H CWE-476

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: driver core: use READ_ONCE() for dev->driver in dev_has_sync_state() dev_has_sync_state() reads dev->driver twice without holding device_lock() -- once for the NULL check and once to dereference ->sync_state. Some callers only hold device_links_write_lock, which doesn't prevent a concurrent unbind from clearing dev->driver via device_unbind_cleanup(). Fix it by reading dev->driver exactly once with READ_ONCE(), pairing with the WRITE_ONCE() in device_set_driver().

A flaw was found in the Linux kernel driver core. The `dev_has_sync_state()` function reads the `dev->driver` pointer multiple times without proper synchronization. This allows a concurrent unbind operation to clear the `dev->driver` pointer between reads. Such a race condition could lead to a null pointer dereference, potentially causing system instability or a denial of service.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 Not affected 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 Not affected kernel Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 Not affected kernel-rt https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-80677 https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-80677 https://lore.kernel.org/linux-cve-announce/2026082849-CVE-2026-80677-13a4@gregkh/T