Executive brief
A memory management issue was identified in the Linux kernel's SCMI regulator driver, which manages power delivery for hardware components. A technical error in how the system tracks internal hardware descriptions could lead to a resource leak when the driver fails to initialize properly. While this is a minor stability issue rather than a direct path to a data breach, it represents a flaw in how the kernel manages system memory and hardware references.
Technical details
A reference count leak was discovered in `drivers/regulator/scmi-regulator.c` within the `scmi_regulator_probe()` function. The function calls `of_find_node_by_name()`, which increments the reference count of a device node, but fails to call `of_node_put()` when an error occurs during the execution of `process_scmi_regulator_of_node()`. This results in a persistent leak of the node reference on the error path. The vulnerability is reachable locally during device probing. Patches have been backported to multiple stable kernel branches including 5.15.y, 6.1.y, 6.6.y, 6.12.y, and 6.18.y.
Affected products
- Linux Linux Kernel 5.11 to 6.18.39
Timeline
- 2026-07-21: disclosed: Initial patch submitted by Wentao Liang
- 2026-07-24: patched: Patch committed to stable trees by Greg Kroah-Hartman
- 2026-07-25: advisory: CVE-2026-64301 published
References
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/1e446e8f8c763be3de7d0362e024cdf46194ffef
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/22cb337370e6539b0418832c6040e9b00c1b74ca
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/3e1441a4d06d35a314961e40057bd1f0106bbc14
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/637c11e3d8d43a7ee654591cda8d17c55a9234fa
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/a935b64548fcfe1d5b4dbdd31dddfb0d7019367f
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/e2baf8ea13fb4b10bec2c4751aea05c00dabcd0f
- https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/fa11039d6cdff84584a3ef8cc1f5e1b56e045da2