Medium [CVE-2026-68216] Return queued buffers on start_streaming failure
This medium-severity Red Hat Linux advisory covers CVE-2026-68216 affecting Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.
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Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: media: pwc: 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. pwc's start_streaming() had two early returns that hit this trap: -ENODEV when the USB device was already disconnected, and -ERESTARTSYS when mutex_lock_interruptible() was interrupted by a signal.
Call the existing pwc_cleanup_queued_bufs() helper with VB2_BUF_STATE_QUEUED before returning (matching the state already used by the pwc_isoc_init() error path in the same function). When the `start_streaming()` function fails, it does not properly return queued buffers, leading to a resource leak.
This can occur if the USB device is disconnected or if a mutex lock is interrupted. A local attacker could potentially exploit this to cause a Denial of Service (DoS) due to resource exhaustion.
This issue affects systems using Philips WebCam (pwc) USB cameras. If start_streaming() fails after buffers are queued, those buffers are not returned to videobuf2, causing a buffer leak.
Systems without pwc hardware are not affected.
Affected versions
No affected-version range was extracted from the source record. The vendor advisory is authoritative — check it before change work.
Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 2 days 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 · high-confidence parse· fetched 2 days ago·verify at source
Mitigation checklist
- To mitigate this issue, prevent the pwc module from loading. See https://access.redhat.com/solutions/41278 for instructions.
Official advisory · high-confidence parse· fetched 2 days ago·verify at source
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