CVE-2026-90296 cpufreq: imx6q: fix devres accumulation across driver rebind
A memory leak in the imx6q cpufreq driver causes resource exhaustion during repeated driver rebinds, leading to denial of service.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- An administrator
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- Not needed
- Fix
- Available
What is CVE-2026-90296?
CVE-2026-90296 is a memory corruption 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:
cpufreq: imx6q: fix devres accumulation across driver rebind
imx6_soc_volt is allocated with devm_kcalloc(cpu_dev, ...), where cpu_dev is the CPU device from get_cpu_device(0). That device is never unbound, so its devres list is never released, and imx6q_cpufreq_remove() does not free the array either. Every probe therefore adds an allocation that stays for the lifetime of the system.
Allocate against the platform device instead. Its devres is released when the driver is unbound, which is exactly the lifetime the array wants: imx6q_set_target() reads it, and nothing may reach that after cpufreq_unregister_driver().
That makes the array actually go away on unbind, so also clear the file-scope pointer in remove and on the failed-probe path, rather than leave it pointing at memory devres is about to release.
Tested by rebinding the driver on qemu's mcimx6ul-evk.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-90296?
How do I fix CVE-2026-90296?
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-2026-90296 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-90296 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as AZL-102461, BELL-CVE-2026-90296, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-90296, GHSA-rfcg-vqg6-9mfp, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-90296.