Medium [CVE-2026-72240] Fix reference leak on failed device registration
This medium-severity Red Hat Linux advisory covers CVE-2026-72240 affecting Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.
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Summary
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: mfd: sm501: Fix reference leak on failed device registration When platform_device_register() fails in sm501_register_device(), the embedded struct device in pdev has already been initialized by device_initialize(), but the failure path only reports the error and returns without dropping the device reference for the current platform device: sm501_register_device() -> platform_device_register(pdev) -> device_initialize(&pdev->dev) -> setup_pdev_dma_masks(pdev) -> platform_device_add(pdev) This leads to a reference leak when platform_device_register() fails.
Fix this by calling platform_device_put() before returning the error. The issue was identified by a static analysis tool I developed and confirmed by manual review.
When a device registration fails, the system does not properly release a device reference. This oversight can lead to a resource leak, potentially causing system instability or a Denial of Service (DoS) over time.
Red Hat severity: Low — 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 10; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9. Will not fix / out of support: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.
Red Hat does not currently list a fixing RHSA for this CVE.
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 24 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 · medium-confidence parse· fetched 24 days 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 24 days ago·verify at source
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