Executive brief
A vulnerability in the Linux kernel's audio driver for Scarlett2 USB devices could allow a local user to crash the system. By connecting a specially crafted or malformed USB device, an attacker can trigger a system failure (NULL pointer dereference). This primarily impacts the availability of the system and any ongoing operations.
Technical details
A NULL pointer dereference vulnerability exists in the Linux kernel's ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) subsystem, specifically within the Scarlett2 mixer quirk of the USB-audio driver. The function 'scarlett2_find_fc_interface()' fails to validate the number of endpoints (bNumEndpoints) in a USB interface descriptor before attempting to access them. An attacker with physical access or the ability to emulate USB devices can provide a malformed descriptor with zero endpoints, triggering the dereference. This results in a kernel oops and system crash (Denial of Service). The issue has been resolved by adding a sanity check to skip interfaces with insufficient endpoints.
Affected products
- Linux Linux Kernel 5.14 to 6.1.167, 6.2 to 6.6.130, 6.7 to 6.12.78, 6.13 to 6.18.19, 6.19 to 6.19.9, 7.0-rc1 to 7.0-rc3
Timeline
- 2026-03-09: patched: Initial patch authored by Takashi Iwai
- 2026-05-08: disclosed: CVE published by kernel.org
- 2026-05-08: advisory
References
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/3d4f23885e4b90347c9a1d779af6e79a99b5172a
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/3d542cf3c4c854cdf5d58049771f68926b9eb2b9
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b014cc945baba75816cda0cf8934be87c9ed4947
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/b267255c15d2a5b90c4e926146aa155e5161e264
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/c5c5a6c53cf3b658f1d4512dfa61f3cd25bc34ba
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/df1d8abf36ca3681c21a6809eaa9a1e01ef897a6