Medium [CVE-2026-68209] Linux kernel: sun4i-csi driver buffer leak leads to Denial of Service
This medium-severity Red Hat Linux advisory covers CVE-2026-68209 affecting Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9, Red Hat package: kernel-rt.
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Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: media: sun4i-csi: Return queued buffers on start_streaming() failure The vb2 framework hands buffers to the driver via buf_queue() before calling start_streaming().
If start_streaming() returns an error without first returning those buffers via vb2_buffer_done(), vb2_start_streaming() fires WARN_ON(owned_by_drv_count) and the queued buffers leak. sun4i_csi_start_streaming() returned -EINVAL when no matching CSI format could be found, before any setup (scratch buffer allocation, pipeline start) had been performed.
The remaining error paths already converge on the err_clear_dma_queue label, which calls return_all_buffers(..., VB2_BUF_STATE_QUEUED) under csi->qlock. Jump to that label directly: the intermediate err_disable_device / err_disable_pipeline / err_free_scratch_buffer labels are skipped, which is correct because nothing they would undo has happened yet.
When the `start_streaming()` function fails, the `vb2` framework does not properly return queued buffers, causing a buffer leak. This issue could lead to resource exhaustion and potentially a Denial of Service (DoS) condition on the affected system.
Red Hat severity: Moderate — CVSS 5.5 (CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H). Weakness: CWE-772.
Affected Red Hat products: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.
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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