What’s Vulnerable › Vulnerabilities

CVE-2026-97972: net: macb: put the "mdio" child node reference on success

• 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: 2026-09-25 · updated 2026-10-19

Description

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved: net: macb: put the "mdio" child node reference on success macb_mii_init() holds the reference returned by of_get_child_by_name() for macb_mdiobus_register() and drops it only on the error paths, so every successful probe leaks a node reference. On a CM5, overlay removal after four bind cycles reports OF: ERROR: memory leak, expected refcount 1 instead of 5 Drop the reference after registration, where __mdiobus_register() has already taken its own for the lifetime of the bus.

Affected products

• Linux kernel: 6.13 — fixed in 7.3

How to fix

Upgrade to a fixed version: Linux kernel 7.3. Check the vendor advisory for mitigations.

References

• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/382a373d9ea7a6ac4de9c022385b6217f65ae3cc
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/5fba30080d298edb742396073372385c961578d3
• https://git.kernel.org/stable/c/7d60dc7ff85b73a2119d582ca2d4456b30960380

Get alerted when CVE-2026-97972 or the next vulnerability affects your stack