CVE-2023-52736: ALSA: hda: Do not unset preset when cleaning up codec

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: 2024-05-21 · updated 2026-06-17
Weakness: CWE-476

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: ALSA: hda: Do not unset preset when cleaning up codec Several functions that take part in codec's initialization and removal are re-used by ASoC codec drivers implementations. Drivers mimic the behavior of hda_codec_driver_probe/remove() found in sound/pci/hda/hda_bind.c with their component->probe/remove() instead. One of the reasons for that is the expectation of snd_hda_codec_device_new() to receive a valid pointer to an instance of struct snd_card. This expectation can be met only once sound card components probing commences. As ASoC sound card may be unbound without codec device being actually removed from the system, unsetting ->preset in snd_hda_codec_cleanup_for_unbind() interferes with module unload -> load scenario causing null-ptr-deref. Preset is assigned only once, during device/driver matching whereas ASoC codec driver's module reloading may occur several times throughout the lifetime of an audio stack.

Affected products

Linux kernel: before 5.10.169; from 5.11 before 5.15.95; from 5.16 before 6.1.13; 6.2-rc1, 6.2-rc2, 6.2-rc3, 6.2-rc4, 6.2-rc5, 6.2-rc6 — fixed in 5.10.169, 5.15.95, 6.1.13

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 5.10.169, 5.15.95, 6.1.13. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

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