CVE-2026-90288 phy: renesas: rcar-gen2: Fix double of_node_put on phy creation failure
A double free vulnerability in the Renesas R-Car Gen2 PHY driver can cause a kernel crash, requiring a patch to fix the reference counting logic.
- 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-2026-90288?
CVE-2026-90288 is a high-severity use after free vulnerability in Linux, published on 17 Sep 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:
phy: renesas: rcar-gen2: Fix double of_node_put on phy creation failure
for_each_child_of_node_scoped() releases the node reference on scope exit, so the explicit of_node_put(np) in the devm_phy_create() error path drops it twice.
Drop the redundant of_node_put() and let the scoped cleanup handle it.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-90288?
How do I fix CVE-2026-90288?
Apply the vendor's patch.
Upgrade to the fixed version. These bugs are found with fuzzing and sanitisers and avoided by memory-safe languages. More about Use after free.
Is CVE-2026-90288 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-90288 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2026-90288, GHSA-c48g-9j8m-h9g5, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-90288.