Executive brief
The Linux kernel's ASoC audio driver for Rockchip PDM audio devices failed to check if power management operations succeeded before accessing hardware registers. This could result in register accesses to unpowered devices, potentially causing undefined behavior, system crashes, or data corruption. The fix adds proper error checking to ensure the device is powered before register access is attempted.
Technical details
The vulnerability exists in rockchip_pdm_set_fmt() which calls pm_runtime_get_sync() but ignores its return value; if runtime PM resume fails, subsequent register accesses occur on an unpowered device in undefined state. The fix replaces pm_runtime_get_sync() with pm_runtime_resume_and_get() and adds early return on failure. This is a missing error-check condition in the audio codec driver affecting Rockchip PDM hardware initialization.
Affected products
- Linux Linux kernel 5.10 and later through 7.2
Timeline
- 2026-09-24: disclosed
- 2026-09-21: patched