CVE-2026-89741 is a vulnerability in Linux Kernel
Published on September 11, 2026
Revert "media: v4l2-dev: fix error handling in __video_register_device()"
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
Revert "media: v4l2-dev: fix error handling in __video_register_device()"
This reverts commit 2a934fdb01db6458288fc9386d3d8ceba6dd551a.
The intentions of that patch were good, but it doesn't work.
The idea is that if device_register fails, you have to do a put_device
to let the ref counter release resources.
However, the V4L2 API says that if video_register_device() fails, then
you have to call video_device_release(), which kfree()s the video_device
struct.
But the put_device() will already have freed the struct, so you end
up in a double-free scenario.
There is not really a good way of fixing this without breaking
video_register_device() into two parts, one that initializes everything,
and one that does the actual device_register, and then converting all
V4L2 drivers to this new model.
That is a massive job, and it is very unlikely that device_register
will fail.
So rather than ending up in a double-free scenario, just revert this
patch, and in that case we'll have a small memory leak. Which is a lot
more robust.
Products Associated with CVE-2026-89741
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Affected Versions
Linux:- Version 2429bb9fad88c8fa84c4956b0a21cf5afe5e92b7 and below 712ca1cf756de2557a116e0df55791bac0c9f99e is affected.
- Version 2a934fdb01db6458288fc9386d3d8ceba6dd551a and below aad08b5f67d2a8116e1a00bce2611c1513b10bce is affected.
- Version 2a934fdb01db6458288fc9386d3d8ceba6dd551a and below ce792b94e03882108019ba996c1a7c4d4e09be2c is affected.
- Version 2a934fdb01db6458288fc9386d3d8ceba6dd551a and below e7600f5cee5de14065f950807931d6e6d40fb2d7 is affected.
- Version ee141706e701356dda41c6fed9ee18bf427c28e3 is affected.
- Version e5c8e62ae551e0ad2e15412aa0c57c2856d59677 is affected.
- Version 8b451a9a46f2bfc510e6d5c2492df91647586184 is affected.
- Version b6be1f5633eae200af2527e9eeb7f51be5739b0f is affected.
- Version ae7b143e05b36fc69d6571751855946cc45064c6 is affected.
- Version 4451412739ed33a49b34624299394ee575116d0c is affected.
- Version 6.12.35 and below 6.12.109 is affected.
- Version 5.4.295 and below 5.5 is affected.
- Version 5.10.239 and below 5.11 is affected.
- Version 5.15.186 and below 5.16 is affected.
- Version 6.1.142 and below 6.2 is affected.
- Version 6.6.95 and below 6.7 is affected.
- Version 6.15.4 and below 6.16 is affected.
- Version 6.16 is affected.
- Before 6.16 is unaffected.
- Version 6.12.109, <= 6.12.* is unaffected.
- Version 6.18.50, <= 6.18.* is unaffected.
- Version 7.2.4, <= 7.2.* is unaffected.
- Version 7.3-rc1, <= * is unaffected.