CVE-2022-50616: regulator: core: Use different devices for resource allocation and DT lookup

Severity: unknown
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: 2025-12-08 · updated 2026-06-17

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: regulator: core: Use different devices for resource allocation and DT lookup Following by the below discussion, there's the potential UAF issue between regulator and mfd. https://lore.kernel.org/all/20221128143601.1698148-1-yangyingliang@huawei.com/ From the analysis of Yingliang CPU A |CPU B mt6370_probe() | devm_mfd_add_devices() | |mt6370_regulator_probe() | regulator_register() | //allocate init_data and add it to devres | regulator_of_get_init_data() i2c_unregister_device() | device_del() | devres_release_all() | // init_data is freed | release_nodes() | | // using init_data causes UAF | regulator_register() It's common to use mfd core to create child device for the regulator. In order to do the DT lookup for init data, the child that registered the regulator would pass its parent as the parameter. And this causes init data resource allocated to its parent, not itself. The issue happen when parent device is going to release and regulator core is still doing some operation of init data constraint for the regulator of child device. To fix it, this patch expand 'regulator_register' API to use the different devices for init data allocation and DT lookup.

Affected products

Linux kernel: 3.18 — fixed in 6.2

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 6.2. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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