CVE-2021-47180: NFC: nci: fix memory leak in nci_allocate_device

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: 2024-03-25 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-401

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: NFC: nci: fix memory leak in nci_allocate_device nfcmrvl_disconnect fails to free the hci_dev field in struct nci_dev. Fix this by freeing hci_dev in nci_free_device. BUG: memory leak unreferenced object 0xffff888111ea6800 (size 1024): comm "kworker/1:0", pid 19, jiffies 4294942308 (age 13.580s) hex dump (first 32 bytes): 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 60 fd 0c 81 88 ff ff .........`...... 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ backtrace: [<000000004bc25d43>] kmalloc include/linux/slab.h:552 [inline] [<000000004bc25d43>] kzalloc include/linux/slab.h:682 [inline] [<000000004bc25d43>] nci_hci_allocate+0x21/0xd0 net/nfc/nci/hci.c:784 [<00000000c59cff92>] nci_allocate_device net/nfc/nci/core.c:1170 [inline] [<00000000c59cff92>] nci_allocate_device+0x10b/0x160 net/nfc/nci/core.c:1132 [<00000000006e0a8e>] nfcmrvl_nci_register_dev+0x10a/0x1c0 drivers/nfc/nfcmrvl/main.c:153 [<000000004da1b57e>] nfcmrvl_probe+0x223/0x290 drivers/nfc/nfcmrvl/usb.c:345 [<00000000d506aed9>] usb_probe_interface+0x177/0x370 drivers/usb/core/driver.c:396 [<00000000bc632c92>] really_probe+0x159/0x4a0 drivers/base/dd.c:554 [<00000000f5009125>] driver_probe_device+0x84/0x100 drivers/base/dd.c:740 [<000000000ce658ca>] __device_attach_driver+0xee/0x110 drivers/base/dd.c:846 [<000000007067d05f>] bus_for_each_drv+0xb7/0x100 drivers/base/bus.c:431 [<00000000f8e13372>] __device_attach+0x122/0x250 drivers/base/dd.c:914 [<000000009cf68860>] bus_probe_device+0xc6/0xe0 drivers/base/bus.c:491 [<00000000359c965a>] device_add+0x5be/0xc30 drivers/base/core.c:3109 [<00000000086e4bd3>] usb_set_configuration+0x9d9/0xb90 drivers/usb/core/message.c:2164 [<00000000ca036872>] usb_generic_driver_probe+0x8c/0xc0 drivers/usb/core/generic.c:238 [<00000000d40d36f6>] usb_probe_device+0x5c/0x140 drivers/usb/core/driver.c:293 [<00000000bc632c92>] really_probe+0x159/0x4a0 drivers/base/dd.c:554

Affected products

Linux kernel: from 4.0 before 4.4.271; from 4.5 before 4.9.271; from 4.10 before 4.14.235; from 4.15 before 4.19.193; from 4.20 before 5.4.123; from 5.5 before 5.10.41 — fixed in 4.14.235, 4.19.193, 4.4.271, 4.9.271, 5.10.41, 5.12.8

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 4.14.235, 4.19.193, 4.4.271, 4.9.271. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

Get alerted when CVE-2021-47180 or the next vulnerability affects your stack