# CVE-2026-97501: pinctrl: mediatek: paris: bypass pinctrl GPIO layer in set GPIO direction

> A locking bug in the MediaTek pinctrl driver causes kernel warnings and potential instability when setting GPIO directions, requiring a kernel patch.

- **Severity:** Not scored
- **Exploited in the wild:** Not known
- **Login needed:** Not needed
- **Attackable:** Local or same network only
- **Victim action needed:** Not needed
- **Fix available:** Yes
- **Published:** 24 Sep 2026
- **Updated:** 21 Oct 2026
- **Also known as:** AZL-110447, BELL-CVE-2026-97501, DEBIAN-CVE-2026-97501, GHSA-gwq5-76j7-fm2x, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-97501

## What is CVE-2026-97501?

CVE-2026-97501 is a denial of service vulnerability in Linux, published on 24 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:

pinctrl: mediatek: paris: bypass pinctrl GPIO layer in set GPIO direction

pinctrl_gpio_direction_input() / pinctrl_gpio_direction_output() take
the pinctrl mutex. This causes a gpiochip operations to need to sleep.
Worse yet, the .can_sleep field in the gpiochip is not set. This causes
the shared GPIO proxy to trip over, as it uses gpiod_cansleep() to check
whether it can use a spinlock or needs a mutex. In this case, it ends
up taking a spinlock, then calls pinctrl_gpio_direction_output(), which
takes a mutex. This causes a huge warning.

While this class of Mediatek hardware does not have separate clear/set
registers, the pinctrl context has a spinlock that is taken whenever
a register read-modify-write is done. Also, once the GPIO function is
selected / muxed in, further GPIO operations do not involve pinctrl
operations or state. The GPIO direction and level values do not require
toggling the pinmux or any other pin config options.

Switch to directly calling mtk_pinmux_gpio_set_direction() in the GPIO
set direction callbacks to avoid taking the pinctrl mutex. Drop the
.gpio_set_direction field in mtk_pmxops to signal we are no longer using
the pinctrl GPIO layer for setting the direction.

## Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-97501?


## How do I fix CVE-2026-97501?

Apply the vendor's patch.

## Is CVE-2026-97501 being exploited?

There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-97501 in the wild and no public exploit code.

## Fix prompt for AI coding agents

```text
Check this codebase for CVE-2026-97501 and fix it if it is affected.

What it is: CVE-2026-97501 is a denial of service vulnerability in Linux, published on 24 Sep 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, with no action from the victim.
Exploitation: There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-97501 in the wild and no public exploit code.

Affected product: Linux. No package-level version data is available, so check the vendor advisory linked from the reference page.

Task:
1. Search the dependency manifests and lockfiles (for example package.json, package-lock.json, requirements.txt, poetry.lock, uv.lock, pom.xml, build.gradle, go.mod, Cargo.lock, Gemfile.lock) and any Dockerfiles for the affected packages, including transitive dependencies.
2. If an affected version is in use, upgrade it to the fixed version for its release line with the project's package manager, so the lockfile is regenerated. Prefer the smallest upgrade that fixes it.
3. If there is no fix, or the upgrade would break the build, do not guess: explain the risk and the safest workaround instead.
4. Run the tests and summarise what changed and why.
5. If nothing in the project is affected, say so and change nothing.

Reference: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-97501/ (Markdown: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-97501/index.md)
```

## Sources

- CVE record: https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-97501
- NVD: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-97501
- OSV: https://osv.dev/vulnerability/CVE-2026-97501

---
From sbomify Insights: https://insights.sbomify.com/CVE-2026-97501/
Summaries are generated and may contain mistakes; the official description above is the record.