CVE-2020-36784 i2c: cadence: fix reference leak when pm_runtime_get_sync fails

What is CVE-2020-36784?

CVE-2020-36784 is a medium-severity denial of service vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 28 Feb 2024. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.

Official description

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

i2c: cadence: fix reference leak when pm_runtime_get_sync fails

The PM reference count is not expected to be incremented on return in functions cdns_i2c_master_xfer and cdns_reg_slave.

However, pm_runtime_get_sync will increment pm usage counter even failed. Forgetting to putting operation will result in a reference leak here.

Replace it with pm_runtime_resume_and_get to keep usage counter balanced.

Which versions are affected by CVE-2020-36784?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2020-36784?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Upgrade, then put limits on request size, rate and nesting depth so one client cannot exhaust the service. More about Denial of service.

Is CVE-2020-36784 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2020-36784 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Other vulnerabilities in Linux kernel

• CVE-2026-53266 Linux Kernel Out-of-Bounds Write Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2013-6282 Linux Kernel Improper Input Validation Exploited High 8.8
• CVE-2022-0185 Linux Kernel Heap-Based Buffer Overflow Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2013-2094 Linux Kernel Privilege Escalation Exploited High 8.4
• CVE-2026-53362 Linux Kernel Unspecified Exploited High 7.8

All Linux kernel vulnerabilities

Sources

• CVE record
• NVD
• OSV
• GitHub advisory
• How this page is made

Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2020-36784, GHSA-jq5v-68r8-42wc, UBUNTU-CVE-2020-36784.