Medium [CVE-2026-68346] Linux kernel: ALSA cs35l41 driver memory leak and potential system instability
This medium-severity Red Hat Linux advisory covers CVE-2026-68346 affecting Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux for NVIDIA 26, Red Hat package: kernel.
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Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ALSA: hda: cs35l41: validate and free ACPI mute object cs35l41_get_acpi_mute_state() evaluates a _DSM method to get the ACPI mute state and reads the first byte from the returned object.
However, the returned ACPI object is owned by the caller and is never freed after use, so each successful query leaks the _DSM result object. The code also assumes that the returned object is a buffer with at least one byte.
A malformed firmware response can return a different object type or an empty buffer, and the direct ret->buffer.pointer dereference can then access an invalid pointer. The `cs35l41_get_acpi_mute_state()` function fails to properly free an ACPI object after use, leading to a memory leak with each successful query.
Additionally, the driver does not validate the returned ACPI object, allowing a malformed firmware response to cause an invalid pointer dereference. This could lead to system instability or a denial of service.
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-476.
Affected Red Hat products: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10; Red Hat Enterprise Linux for NVIDIA 26. Red Hat lists Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9; Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4 as 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 · 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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