Junglewise Threat Intelligence

CVE-2026-64429: Linux Kernel Spreadtrum EIC GPIO driver invalid sleep in IRQ path

CVE-2026-64429 · Severity: info · CVSS 0 · Published 2026-07-25

Technologies: Linux Kernel. Vendors: Linux.

Executive brief

A vulnerability was identified in the Linux kernel's Spreadtrum EIC GPIO driver that could cause system instability or crashes on Real-Time (PREEMPT_RT) Linux configurations. The issue occurs when the system attempts to initialize certain hardware interrupts, leading to an invalid operation where the system tries to 'sleep' while in a context that forbids it. This primarily affects the reliability and availability of devices using this specific hardware controller under real-time workloads.

Technical details

The vulnerability is a 'sleeping function called from invalid context' bug within the `gpio-eic-sprd.c` driver. In PREEMPT_RT kernels, standard `spinlock_t` structures are converted into sleeping mutexes. The `sprd_eic_irq_unmask()` function calls `sprd_eic_update()`, which acquires `sprd_eic->lock` using `spin_lock_irqsave()`. Because this path is reached via `irq_startup()` during hardware interrupt setup—a non-sleepable context—the use of a sleeping lock triggers a kernel panic or BUG. The fix involves converting the controller's lock to a `raw_spinlock_t` to ensure it remains a true spinlock that does not sleep, which is safe as the critical section only performs MMIO register updates.

Affected products

  • Linux Linux Kernel 25518e024e3a to 96612bf2712cd961dbd9b52f3a9b4ab668f57628

Timeline

  • 2026-06-17: disclosed: Initial patch submission by Runyu Xiao
  • 2026-07-24: patched: Patch committed to stable tree by Greg Kroah-Hartman
  • 2026-07-25: advisory: CVE-2026-64429 published

References

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