CVE-2026-45868 pinctrl: single: fix refcount leak in pcs_add_gpio_func()

What is CVE-2026-45868?

CVE-2026-45868 is a medium-severity vulnerability in Linux kernel, published on 27 May 2026. 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:

pinctrl: single: fix refcount leak in pcs_add_gpio_func()

of_parse_phandle_with_args() returns a device_node pointer with refcount incremented in gpiospec.np. The loop iterates through all phandles but never releases the reference, causing a refcount leak on each iteration.

Add of_node_put() calls to release the reference after extracting the needed arguments and on the error path when devm_kzalloc() fails.

This bug was detected by our static analysis tool and verified by my code review.

Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-45868?

It affects 1 product.

Products include Linux kernel.

How do I fix CVE-2026-45868?

Apply the vendor's patch.

Is CVE-2026-45868 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-45868 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 BELL-CVE-2026-45868, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-45868, GHSA-m8c9-pvw4-86cp, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2204-CVE-2026-45868, ROOT-OS-UBUNTU-2404-CVE-2026-45868, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-45868.