CVE-2026-98645 HID: winwing: fix use-after-free in force feedback teardown
A use-after-free vulnerability in the Linux kernel's winwing HID driver allows local attackers to cause system crashes or potentially execute code via device unbinding or hot-unplugging.
- 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-2026-98645?
CVE-2026-98645 is an use after free vulnerability in Linux, published on 18 Oct 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:
HID: winwing: fix use-after-free in force feedback teardown
winwing_init_ff() passes the driver's private data, allocated with devm_kzalloc() in winwing_probe(), as the effect context to input_ff_create_memless(). The memoryless force-feedback core takes ownership of that pointer and frees it with kfree() from input_ff_destroy() (ml_ff_destroy()) when the input device is destroyed.
Freeing a devm-managed allocation with kfree() is an invalid free, and the same object is then released again by devres when the HID device is torn down, a double free. As the allocation also embeds the LED class devices, their timers and work item live on freed memory and the slab gets corrupted. This triggers on unbind, rmmod, hot-unplug and on system suspend, where the firmware cache walks the now-corrupt devres list. KASAN reports:
BUG: KASAN: invalid-free in input_ff_destroy Allocated by task N: winwing_probe
Pass NULL as the memless context instead and fetch the driver data from the input device in winwing_play_effect(): the HID core already stores the hid_device as the input device's drvdata. The force-feedback core then owns nothing that it must not free.
Which versions are affected by CVE-2026-98645?
How do I fix CVE-2026-98645?
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-2026-98645 being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of CVE-2026-98645 in the wild and no public exploit code.
Sources
Also known as DEBIAN-CVE-2026-98645, GHSA-m8vm-rrf4-qcx2, UBUNTU-CVE-2026-98645.