CVE-2026-72446 ALSA: usb-audio: qcom: reject stream disable with no active interface
A local attacker can trigger a kernel crash or memory corruption by sending a malformed USB audio stream disable request via AF_QIPCRTR.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Any signed-in user
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2026-72446?
CVE-2026-72446 is a high-severity 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:
ALSA: usb-audio: qcom: reject stream disable with no active interface
handle_uaudio_stream_req() resolves an interface index with info_idx_from_ifnum(), which returns -EINVAL when no interface matches. The enable branch and the response: cleanup label both guard against a negative index, but the disable branch does not: it forms info = &uadev[pcm_card_num].info[info_idx] and dereferences it.
uadev[].info is a pointer allocated only when a stream is first enabled, so a negative info_idx on the disable path is unsafe in two ways:
- If the card was never enabled, .info is NULL and &info[-EINVAL] is a wild pointer; reading info->data_ep_pipe faults (kernel oops).
- If the card was enabled at least once (.info allocated) and the disable names an interface that does not match, &info[-EINVAL] points before the allocation; info->data_ep_pipe / info->sync_ep_pipe are an out-of-bounds slab read and, when non-zero, an out-of-bounds 4-byte write (both pipe fields are cleared to 0). That is memory corruption, not just a NULL dereference.
The request is reachable from unprivileged local userspace over AF_QIPCRTR. Reject a disable request with no resolved interface, matching the guard the enable path already has.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-72446?
How do I fix CVE-2026-72446?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Is CVE-2026-72446 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-72446 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as BELL-CVE-2026-72446, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-72446, GHSA-xg4f-mwxf-g67f, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-72446.