Executive brief
The Linux kernel's ASoC (Advanced Sound Codec) driver for Loongson audio hardware failed to validate the success of a configuration property read operation. When the codec audio interface name property was missing or malformed, the driver would use uninitialized memory, potentially causing system crashes or undefined behavior affecting audio subsystem stability.
Technical details
This is an error handling vulnerability in the ASoC loongson card driver's ACPI property parsing function (loongson_card_parse_acpi). The device_property_read_string() call for the `codec-dai-name` property did not check its return value; if the property was missing or invalid, an uninitialized pointer would be dereferenced in subsequent operations. The vulnerability requires no user interaction or authentication—it occurs during driver initialization/probe when parsing ACPI device properties. An attacker with control over ACPI firmware tables or a system configured with missing/malformed codec properties could trigger undefined behavior. The fix adds explicit return value checking and error propagation.
Affected products
- Linux Linux kernel versions prior to commit 0eb0e3c623ac1da8b85d518043fef7660af7805d
Timeline
- 2026-09-16: disclosed
- 2026-07-02: patched: Upstream fix committed by Mark Brown