Executive brief
A vulnerability in the Linux kernel's SPI driver for CH341 USB adapters could lead to memory leaks. This occurs because the driver incorrectly manages the lifecycle of its internal resources, failing to release them when the driver is stopped or reconfigured. While primarily a stability issue, persistent memory leaks can eventually lead to system performance degradation or crashes.
Technical details
A resource lifetime management vulnerability exists in the ch341 SPI driver (drivers/spi/spi-ch341.c) within the Linux kernel. The driver incorrectly tied device-managed resources (devres) to the parent USB device instead of the specific USB interface. This root cause leads to memory leaks when the driver is unbound without the physical disconnection of the hardware, such as during probe deferral or configuration changes. An attacker with local access could potentially trigger these conditions to exhaust system memory. The issue has been resolved by correctly associating the controller and driver data lifetime with the USB interface.
Affected products
- Linux Linux Kernel 6.11
Timeline
- 2026-03-27: other: Patch authored
- 2026-05-28: disclosed: CVE published