Medium [CVE-2026-68205] Linux kernel: Denial of Service due to premature module removal in v4l2-fwnode.
This medium-severity Red Hat Linux advisory covers CVE-2026-68205 affecting Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9, Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.
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Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: media: v4l2-fwnode: Fix subdev owner overwritten in v4l2_async_register_subdev_sensor() The v4l2 helper v4l2_async_register_subdev_sensor() calls v4l2_async_register_subdev(), which is a macro that expands to __v4l2_async_register_subdev(sd,THIS_MODULE).
Since the macro is expanded inside v4l2-fwnode.c, THIS_MODULE resolves to the v4l2-fwnode module rather than the sensor driver module that originally set sd->owner.
This causes the problem that the sensor module's reference count is never incremented during async registration, so the module can be removed while the subdevice is still in use by a notifier (e.g., a CSI-2 receiver bridge driver).
Fix this by renaming v4l2_async_register_subdev_sensor() to __v4l2_async_register_subdev_sensor() with an added explicit module argument and introducing a wrapper macro: #define v4l2_async_register_subdev_sensor(sd) \ __v4l2_async_register_subdev_sensor(sd, THIS_MODULE) This ensures the sensor driver module is properly referenced even when the sensor driver does not init the owner field before calling v4l2_async_register_subdev_sensor() and prevents premature module removal.
The `v4l2-fwnode` module, responsible for video device node management, incorrectly handles module ownership during asynchronous subdevice registration.
Affected versions
No affected-version range was extracted from the source record. The vendor advisory is authoritative — check it before change work.
Official advisory · medium-confidence parse· fetched 2 hours ago·verify at source
Fixed versions
No fixed release is recorded yet. That does not prove no patch exists — confirm against the vendor advisory.
Official advisory · medium-confidence parse· fetched 2 hours ago·verify at source
Mitigation
The source record does not include mitigation steps. That is not a statement that no fix exists — read the vendor advisory below for the authoritative guidance.
Official advisory · medium-confidence parse· fetched 2 hours ago·verify at source
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