What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2021-46979: iio: core: fix ioctl handlers removal

• Severity: medium (CVSS 5.5 v3.1)
• Exploited in the wild: not listed in CISA KEV
• EPSS: 0.2% probability of exploitation in the next 30 days
• Public exploit or detection template: none known
• Published: 2024-02-28 · updated 2026-06-17
• Weakness: CWE-415

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: iio: core: fix ioctl handlers removal Currently ioctl handlers are removed twice. For the first time during iio_device_unregister() then later on inside iio_device_unregister_eventset() and iio_buffers_free_sysfs_and_mask(). Double free leads to kernel panic. Fix this by not touching ioctl handlers list directly but rather letting code responsible for registration call the matching cleanup routine itself.

Affected products

• Linux kernel: from 5.11 before 5.11.22; from 5.12 before 5.12.5; 5.13-rc1 — fixed in 5.11.22, 5.12.5

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 5.11.22, 5.12.5. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/11e1cae5da4096552f7c091476cbadbc0d1817da
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/901f84de0e16bde10a72d7eb2f2eb73fcde8fa1a
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ab6c935ba3a04317632f3b8b68675bdbaf395303
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/11e1cae5da4096552f7c091476cbadbc0d1817da
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/901f84de0e16bde10a72d7eb2f2eb73fcde8fa1a
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/ab6c935ba3a04317632f3b8b68675bdbaf395303

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