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CVE-2026-72240: mfd: sm501: Fix reference leak on failed device registration

• 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: 2026-08-15 · updated 2026-08-17

Description

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.

Affected products

• Linux kernel: 2.6.21 — fixed in 7.2

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 7.2. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/0baf9d43a7b7b43df2900bd8656e75b725028b6e
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/16a42c88c4667fa0bd944e438a667e059551f1f1
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/2ff8156fd500d54c61430b6834137fd0a07047ce
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/760a1029692f1d788dc11aa636a3bf432e58b240
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/8c2f0b42fc252e1bf1c7746447091a468e784ca1
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/a3e340d506c1036a747fb0972aebf1063f7ef30e
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/bbb1ecaed4ed7680e63d3a0f143f03de32de5d6e
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/e2dac91380a10e9e8d5883fb73ce9d9b390a629c

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