CVE-2026-72240 mfd: sm501: Fix reference leak on failed device registration
A reference leak in the SM501 MFD driver can lead to memory exhaustion and denial of service when device registration fails.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2026-72240?
CVE-2026-72240 is a memory corruption vulnerability in Linux, published on 15 Aug 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:
mfd: sm501: Fix reference leak on failed device registration
When platform_device_register() fails in sm501_register_device(), the embedded struct device in pdev has already been initialized by device_initialize(), but the failure path only reports the error and returns without dropping the device reference for the current platform device:
sm501_register_device() -> platform_device_register(pdev) -> device_initialize(&pdev->dev) -> setup_pdev_dma_masks(pdev) -> platform_device_add(pdev)
This leads to a reference leak when platform_device_register() fails. Fix this by calling platform_device_put() before returning the error.
The issue was identified by a static analysis tool I developed and confirmed by manual review.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-72240?
How do I fix CVE-2026-72240?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Upgrade to the fixed version. Memory-safe languages, compiler hardening and fuzzing prevent most new cases. More about Memory corruption.
Is CVE-2026-72240 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-72240 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2026-72240, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-72240, GHSA-86jq-c78h-58w8, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-72240.